keep a health journal every day for three months

I tracked a ton of stuff and had no good way to detect patterns. I did learn, for the time that I was doing it, that I probably eat too much sugar. So that was valuable. But I’m not going to hold myself to doing it for three months. It might be better in the future to focus just on a food journal if I really decide to be disciplined about losing weight. For now this goal feels like a weight in and of itself!!

I bought a composition book and took “Keeping Healthy by Keeping Track by Lillian Shah and Laura Messinger” out of the library. We’re on the move.

There’s a book that I just cataloged at work by an alumni about keeping medical records at home that has forms and things, I am so on it. I need to dig out a Journal for this, I have blanks somewhere.

and have a full approximately month and a half of data. What is most revealing is my food log. I snack a lot more than I thought. Today and yesterday, both busy days with big meals, were two days where I didn’t snack. I think rather than take a deprivation tack, which hasn’t been working as I’ve become aware of how much crap I eat (I just think, well, I already blew the day, what’s another cookie or two . . .), I need to focus on

1. Water. I have been thristy for months, it seems. I think I’m perpetually dehydrated. One way I plan to work on this is to add drinks at every meal, especially lunch at work. I’ve heard thirst can be mistaken for hunger and work is definitely where I snack the most.
2. Veggies. Integrating more veggies is a definite need. Hopefully having easy veggies around, like potatoes to bake or frozen veggies to pop in the microwave, will make this easier. Also, as I plan meals I am trying to plan veggie-rich meals for lunches in particular. Additionally, I have been buying bananas to snack on at work rather than finding some other junk to eat (because I do get hungry mid-morning). This is not as easy as before as I realize some veggies and fruits I like are not agreeing with my tummy.

I have kept my journal now for 20 days! I haven’t really learned anything but have been noticing that I eat a lot more crap than previously thought.

It is helping me realize that even though I thought I was eating healthy, and mostly do, I still have room for improvement (lots, actually . . . ). Not enough data to see any patterns as far as my headaches, but hopefully that will emerge.

I finally just created an Excel spreadsheet for what I want. For five days I’ve done this. It’s a start.

a journal in Excel. Hopefully then I can make charts to see connections. I would like to use one of those programs where you enter all your food and it calculates your calories and stuff but they are so tedious that I always abandon them. So this will have to suffice to get me in the habit.

one online and have downloaded one and attempted to download two others. My thinking about tracking in a computer program is that it will calculate the calories for you and also calculate the calories burned in exercise. But all of them are so clunky, because they don’t have the foods I eat. They have like 1000 cereals and none are the brand I ate this morning. Or they have 5 varieties of soy milk and none are the ones I just drank (not even close, actually . . .). Well, if I’m going to go to the trouble, I don’t want to approximate, or it wouldn’t be accurate, anyway. And to be adding a ton of custom foods doesn’t seem worth it. I am going to try one more. If that one sucks, too, I guess pen and paper will have to suffice.

I am feeling discontent with my health lately, and I think this can be a way to become aware of the first course of action. For example, if it turns out I’m eating too much sugar, I’d want to focus on cutting back or eating more veggies.

Hopefully it’s like when I started faithfully tracking where my money goes. Without even making much effort, I started to change, because I was aware. I was thinking about it. I didn’t WANT to write down that I’d spent $5 on a fru-fru drink at Caribou or something like that, so I didn’t spend it. I had a journal format before, which I can still use to record diet/illness, but I think I will try to make a graph now. It will be more visual for me, which is more helpful.

Also, I will start wearing a pedometer again to track on the chart. I once checked off the goal of “walk 10,000 steps a day,” but my criterion was to do it for 14 days in a row, and then after I checked it off, I quit working on it. It has to be EVERY day. So I will see how I am doing at this point, about six months after I’ve checked it off.