My New Approach to Healthy Logging and Tracking

I've been meaning to do this post for a while since starting the new year, but I didn't know if I wanted to put it down as part of my "Gain and Loss" series or just a listicle of pages in my bullet journal.

After putting it off for so long I just decided to write it up and see how it goes.

In the beginning of the year, we're all inundated with weight loss and health posts. It's a commonality that really it all comes down to making more conscious choices in nutritional value and portion control.




Tracking your caloric intake versus your active caloric burn is how people base their diets. Whether it be with Weight Watcher's point system or using an app like "My Fitness Pal" or "Fitbit..tracking food and exercise has been the primary form of accountability and intake logging.

In the past, I've tried logging in apps, and though I went in with great intention and the goal of learning control, something about my personality or demeanor, possibly due to my perfectionist mindset, I became extremely addicted to the act of counting calories and nutrients. It became very dangerous mentally and physically.

When I was obsessively tracking and logging my exercise and calories my habits included weighing myself several times a day, eating breakfast and then seeing how busy I could keep myself to not eat for the rest of the day and ignore the hunger, go to the gym and work out for 3 hour sessions...and the thing is, I didn't lose that much weight. I didn't feel genuine in the slightest. I would sit in the car and berate myself.

For a while, I would post Snapchats or tweet like a gym-rat. I'd post Instagrams from the gym trying to make it seem as if I was living this awesome fitness lifestyle, but the truth is, I was miserable.

Now, last year around May, I adopted bullet-journaling to help with my medication tracking for my mental health. My whole mental health journey was documented in a blue dotted moleskin journal and it felt quite amazing how I ran out of pages the same week I finished my Intensive Outpatient Program.

This year I ordered 2 different grid journals. I have a hardcover one for goal planning and long-term tracking that only takes a few pages, but we'll get to that in another post. The other one that I ordered is a soft cover large dot-grid journal that I'm going to use to track daily things like my mood, weight, and habits.


Yup, instead of caloric or nutrient intake or output, I'm going to track habits. Habit tracking is a thing some have heard of, people usually use it to kick an unhealthy habit such as smoking or addiction, but as someone who has clinical depression and severe anxiety, my unhealthy habits can simply be poor hygiene, isolation coping,  retail distraction shopping, uneven sleep patterns, or even meticulous repeated things like same meal for days....etc.

I think this will help me be more aware of my anxiety, depression, and add waves. I'll hopefully be able to pinpoint which one is overtaking at the moment and see which habits lead to what....pretty much I want to find a cycle of my overall well-being, not just my food/water/exercise side.

With this tracking set up, I hope to accomplish some specific things as well such as not worrying about what I eat...if it's good or bad for me. I just want to worry about what makes me feel good. Of course, I'll track when I feel the urge to binge eat and see if it's emotionally charged or maybe if I was just having a good time and enjoying some great food. I also want to balance my exercise habits so I can balance hiking and ballet and everyday activity like walking.

Who knows what this will transform to be....but stay tuned!