Activity and exercise diary

The short version

  • A printable weekly diary to track your walking, strength and shoulder exercises, how hard they felt and your energy.
  • It helps you build up gradually towards 150 minutes of moderate activity a week and strength exercise on 2 days.1
  • Free to download and print. Two landscape A4 pages, one for each week.
Download the activity diary (PDF)

How to use it

  1. Each day, write down your walking or other activity in minutes, any strength exercises, and your arm and shoulder exercises.
  2. Rate your effort from 0 to 10. Moderate effort, where you can talk but not sing, is about 4 to 6.1
  3. Rate your energy from 0 to 10, and note how you felt.
  4. At the end of the week, add up your minutes and choose one small goal for next week.

Why keeping a diary helps

Writing things down helps you see your progress, spot patterns, such as tiredness after chemotherapy, and plan your activity around them. It’s also useful to show your team. Being active during and after treatment helps with fatigue, mood and physical function.2

Plans to use with it

Safety

Stop and contact your team if you have chest pain, a racing or irregular heartbeat, severe breathlessness, dizziness, new swelling, new bone pain, or a high temperature during chemotherapy. See when to rest.

Everyone’s treatment is different, so talk to your cancer team about what is right for you.

References

  1. UK Chief Medical Officers. Physical activity guidelines for adults and older adults. 2019. www.gov.uk/government/publications/physical-activity-guidelines-adults-and-older-adults/physical-activity-for-adults-and-older-adults-19-and-over-text-of-the-infographic
  2. Campbell KL, Winters-Stone KM, Wiskemann J, et al. Exercise guidelines for cancer survivors: consensus statement from international multidisciplinary roundtable. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2019;51(11):2375–2390. doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000002116