Tracking (and thinking about tracking)

I will admit, I am better about tracking my food after surgery than I was before. It seems immensely more important now to make sure I hit those protein and water goals when I can only eat a little at a time. I also notice how much more exhausted I am if I don't hit those goals. 

I tried tracking apps and I just couldn't find one that felt right. Currently, the only goals I am tracking are protein and water. I can't each more than 3 to 4 ounces at a time and it's all protein and fiber, so there isn't much else to worry about. Most of the apps want way more information than that and it felt very overwhelming. 

Then I looked at paper trackers that you could buy. I found printable ones online that could go into a planner or journal. I found entire books. None of those seemed right for me either. Some were too busy, some were not organized in a way that made sense to me. It was a bit disappointing, but led me to where I needed to be. 

I used to really love scrapbooking, altered journals, and other papercrafts when my kids were little. I haven't really had the time for awhile. The memories of sitting and putting these items together were really calming and made me slow down. Those were things I need in my life right now. I decided to pick up some bullet journals - the ones with pages that can be gridded out based on the dot pattern. It was important to me that it had a lot of pages so I wasn't replacing it constantly and that it was spiral bound so I didn't have to worry about breaking a binding. 

Over the past several weeks I have tried out various page set ups. I moved things around, changed the key for my tracking bars, and inserted additional items to track (like exercise time). The best thing was that some of the items that I found too busy on traditional trackers available to purchase could be moved to their own page because I was in charge. 

So what did I end up with? My book starts with an entire page made of 1x1 squares where I can color in a square for each pound lost. The next page is the silhouette of a female body with lines next to the areas I want to track measurements. I filled this in with my before measurements and will add another copy of this page when I want to update my measurements (maybe at 6 months). Then I have a page designed to remind me of why I am taking this journey. It includes what I struggle with at my highest weight (stairs), what health concerns I have (NAFLD), and a few things I will do to celebrate as I get healthier and remove the extra weight (zipline without having to worry about weight limits). 

The next section of my book has a tab with the month, so my first tab is February. I set up page layouts to track my water and protein goals for the first month. I was able to fit about 4 days on each page when that was all I was tracking. When I added my tab for March, I had moved into eating actual food and added boxed write down my meals. The boxes had room for short notes if it didn't agree with me or I didn't like it or I really wanted to save that recipe. I also added boxes to track my vitamins and bowel movements. Now that I'm in April, I have added a bar to track exercise time and divided my food note boxes into 3 meals and 2 smaller snack boxes. I still have my protein and water tracking bars, the vitamin check boxes, and the BM check box. The boxes are large enough that I can add additional macro information in the future. I also added a page at the front of the month to track my doctor appointments. I just labeled 1-30 on each line going down the page and placed my appointments on the correct line.

Here is what my page layout looks like. 3 days fit on each page. 

Within each day, the top left is my water goal (64 ounces a day) and my protein goal (60 grams a day). Each box in the bar represents 5 oz/gr and I placed numbers at 25, 50, and 75 to help with filling it out. I put more than my goal to allow me to see if I was often exceeding. 

The boxes on the top right for the day are for my vitamins. I used to label them AM, Noon, Evening, and PM but that got to be a pain. Instead, I switched to 1-4. On Thursday there is an additional box for my B12 nasal spray. 

In the middle of each section are the boxes to track my meals and snacks. I often don't fill both snack boxes, sometimes I don't use them at all. 

At the bottom of each section I have my bar to track my exercise. Again, each box is 5 minutes and I placed numbers at 15, 30, and 45 minutes. My goal is to get 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week.  Over to the bottom right is a check box to indicate if I had a BM that day. 

Overall, this layout is what I need. There is plenty of room for everything right now and I can easily see how I'm doing with my goals each day and overall. Having the appointments (and I added other events as I went through the month like a birthday party, spending a day out, or visiting with friends) really let's me see how getting out of my house "safe zone" affects my progress. I can see if it's been more than a day without a BM and don't have to guess if it's time to take something to help me along. 

Here is the tracker filled out for yesterday. It's not fancy, maybe that will come in the future. Monday was a crazy day so I wasn't even really good about my penmanship. I know what each meal is by looking at it, but no one else really understands. 

It's almost time for me to set up the pages for May and I will keep this format. It's working and even if I don't log anything until lunch, it's structured enough I can easily remember and input the information. It was portable for a weekend getaway and allowed me to easily keep up with my tracking habits. 

I hope this helps someone. If I make changes in the future I will update here.