To Beginners, How to Track Your Fasting Like A Pro [PDF]

Are you doing intermittent fasting?

Are you having a hard time to insist on that?

Do you know it usually takes 21 days to form a new habit, but it usually takes a couple of seconds to break it?

Intermittent fasting is such an easy-to-follow weight-loss style that an increasing number of people depend on it to lose weight, boost metabolism and reduce the risk of some diseases.

However, it’s not an easy way to stick to fasting even though intermittent fasting has been regarded as a natural behavior for humans.

In this article, we’ll let you know intermittent fasting can be well run as long as a suitable tracker is selected.

Why is it Necessary to Track Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting is a science combining time and diet.

As far as time is concerned, nothing is not so magical as time. It plays a role as a ruler based on which all of your activities are scheduled like the time you should eat, the time you should drink, the time you should sleep and the time you should exercise. You can never control time but you can control yourself how to spend a certain range of time. That’s also the leading reason why a timetable is always needed in our life.

For intermittent fasting, a timetable is also needed and of great importance for you to achieve the goal. It’s been known most intermittent fasting plans cover 16:8, 5:2, 18:6, 20:4, etc. that require fasters to limit themselves to nothing to eat but something to drink like water, black coffee, gluten-free tea or even lemon water.

During intermittent fasting, you’re not in a school where a bell rings to remind you to have a class or end a class. Therefore, a tool is needed to remind you to start or end fasting.

If you don’t track your intermittent fasting, you probably miss out on the right time to start fasting and you’ll follow an inaccurate fasting window. Worse still, you’ll probably give up intermittent fasting in a short time. Just look at your exercise outfit and equipment at the corner of your home. Do you have a similar feeling?

What to Track during Intermittent Fasting?

Fasting Start and End Time

Your fasting start and end time is the leading purpose of your fasting tracking. In accordance with your intermittent fasting plan, the fasting time should be scheduled fit for your ordinary life pattern. Through tracking fasting start and end time, you’ll be able to know the specific fasting time you’ve just gone through.

What You Drink during Fasting Window

During fasting period, fasters can eat nothing but to drink healthy drinks. Among all the drinks, water is the crown. Water is beneficial for detox and weigh loss friendly. In addition, drinking water makes you feel full, stopping you from overeating and helping you breaking hunger during fasting window.

What You Eat during Feasting Window

Although no restrictions are set to the foods you can eat during feasting window, your calorie intake should be well controlled and the content of proteins and fiber should be guaranteed. Therefore, it’s necessary to track what you eat during feasting window to prevent some foods breaking your fast.

Your Weight Change and Goal

Weight goal is the essential backup of all your efforts. Weight should be measured regularly and you should see how far you’re still away from your weight goal. Never scale your weight too frequently. On one hand, your weight won’t have a little change if you scale it frequently. On the other hand, it’s normal to see weight swings although you’ve been fasting for a period of time. Your confidence may be reduced by your weight swings.

Your Sleep Data

Just as is discussed in the early part of this article, sleep is beneficial for weight loss so you should maintain enough sleep during intermittent fasting. Tracking your sleep data is quite needed.

How You Feel

Unrelated with weight loss in a direct way, your mood affects your weight in a “magical” way and how you feel during intermittent fasting determines whether it fits for you or not. Most intermittent fasters feel great after fasting for a period, however.

Useful Intermittent Fasting Tracking Tools

There are two types of intermittent fasting tracking tools. For a manual tool, a sheet can be used while for an automatic tool, a mobile app can be selected.

Intermittent Fasting Tracking Sheet (A PDF that can be downloaded)

A 16:8 plan is used as an example to show you how and what to track your intermittent fasting data.

Two forms are available with a 16:8 intermittent fasting plan used, to skip breakfast and to skip dinner, leading to two different schedules.

Either style can be selected based on your daily schedule. Snacks can be added between your two meals a day but only healthy snacks are OK.

Below is a tracking sheet for intermittent fasting with a 16:8 diet plan.

For example, you can fill in your sheet like the sample below.

Based on your specific feasting hours, star ratings should be judged by the following principles:

Fewer than 8 hours: 3 stars
A little longer than 8 hours: 2 stars
Much longer than 8 hours: 1 star

You can download this tracking sheet PDF from the link below covering 4 weeks of intermittent fasting. With it printed and stuck on your fridge, you can track your intermittent fasting easily.

Download a PDF of an Intermittent Fasting Tracking Sheet

Intermittent Fasting Tracking App (A Free tracker)

With smartphones becoming popular and widely used, your intermittent fasting can be easily tracked through an app in your mobile.

With your intermittent fasting plan and your first mealtime determined, the tracking app can automatically figure out your time to start and end fasting and it will remind you to do that.

Moreover, other information can be tracked on your intermittent fasting tracker app like your weight goal, what you drink during your fasting window, what you eat during your feasting window, your sleep hours, your daily steps, etc. That’s also what Fastyle does and it can be used for free.