For many of us, exercising feels like a no-win game. We don’t know if we’re making any progress, or even what exercises or routines we should be doing. I know that for me, going to the gym feels like a whole lot of chore, very little fun, and even less useful.

DailyBurn (which used to be called Gyminee) is a great Web application designed to make your exercising experience both better and more rewarding. It’s a hub for all things fitness, and is a huge aid to anyone looking to get in better shape through diet, exercise and good ol’ fashioned hard work.

The first step is creating an account with DailyBurn – it’s free, and only takes a minute or so to set up. There are a few things you can do on the site without an account, but its real usefulness is in tracking your progress – you’ll need an account for that.

Once you’ve got an account, you’re asked for some basic data about yourself – your current weight, the weight you’d like to be (either more or less depending on what you want to do), and a few other useful tidbits for DailyBurn to use as baselines.

You can track two important things with DailyBurn – your diet, and your exercise. The diet section tells you how many calories you should be eating, how much fat, how much protein, and so on and so forth. The goals and markers are very detailed and definite, and DailyBurn always keeps you updated on how quickly you’ll meet your goal.

The idea is that whenever you eat something, you’ll enter it into DailyBurn and let it track your diet for you. You’ll know how much you’re eating and how well you’re eating, always measured against your fitness goals. To me, this is a tad unrealistic, because I feel too guilty about the apple fritter I got at Starbucks to tell anyone about it – but let’s hope that’s just me. If you do track your eating, it’s made stupidly simple – just a quick search and a couple of clicks through the huge database helps you find whatever monstrosity you just ate.

If you’re looking to eat well as well, DailyBurn has a huge catalog of recipes and foods that are both good and good for you – it’s a great way to plan your meals in a healthy way.

The Workout Log is similarly detailed, and equally useful. You can use it to either find a workout program or create a custom workout based on what you have available, what you’d like to work on, and how much time you’ve got. There are tons of exercises and options for people of all body types and with all levels of equipment and space available.

When you’re working out, DailyBurn gives you a way to track all your exercises, as well as your progress on any given exercise. It’s a great way to see improvement, and get motivated to keep working out (something I need BADLY). You can set goals in any of a huge number of fields – mile time, bench press repetitions, whatever – and DailyBurn figures out how to help you achieve them.

There’s a whole community built into DailyBurn that’s actually more useful than I initially thought. There are a number of Challenges, filled with a bunch of people with similar goals: "Lose 10 lbs." "Run 100 miles." And so on. Joining a challenge means you can get involved with other people, share tips and tricks, and keep yourself accountable to actually do the work.

If you’re not looking for a challenge, but just want to get involved with similar people, try the Groups out. You can find people who are interested in the same things as you, and get your fix of whatever you love (at least in the athletic realm). The community’s great, but the reason I’ve started using DailyBurn is that it’s an (almost) painless way to keep track of your diet and workouts, and to always see your progress over time.

Going to the gym feels like all pain and no gain, and DailyBurn succeeds at showing you how to improve, as well as how you’re improving. That’s what keeps me working out.

Photo: tyfn