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I recently did a post on fitness trackers and that got me thinking, what if I started designing my own fitness tracker??
I always preach about how you need to make sure that you’re creating your bullet journal for you. So should make sure that you create spreads that are customized you your needs.
Time to walk the walk…
My fitness journey
I’ve always been a pretty health conscious person.
I grew up in a rural area. Really, my elementary school was 250 kids kindergarten to grade 8 and it was right next to my friend’s dairy farm.
So I was outside constantly. Playing in the fields, woods, swimming, making snow forts, sledding… you name it. I also played volleyball, baseball and tennis and skied.
A pretty active lifestyle.
I was also naturally small and had a fast metabolism which led to everyone in my family just telling me that I was “too skinny” pretty often.
I continued to be active all through high school and university, developing a love for yoga, pilates and ballet. And I also ended up with decently active jobs, waitressing and later doing outside sales.
Even after I had daughters I dropped back down to skinny status.
But then I made a career switch.
I changed my business model so that I could work from home pretty much exclusively. This lead to a much more sedentary life style. The issue was that I had never had a life like this so I continued eating the way I always had. No badly, just without an actual understanding of
I also love to snack at night, even when I’m not hungry.
This lead to a weight gain of about 20 lbs over the course of a year. I also lost a lot of my strength since I wasn’t doing anything anymore.
- Related: 7 Bujo Trackers You’ll Actually Use
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My goals:
- Increase muscle mass
- Increase cardiovascular endurance and strength
- Loose body fat
- Increase flexibility
- Eat a more balanced diet
You know I’m a fan of SMART goals (read more on setting proper goals here) so…
What that looks like:
I want to change my body composition so that I have muscle definition in my arms, legs and stomach. This will happen as I increase muscle mass and
I want to increase my flexibility so that I can do a full split and high bow pose by incorporating daily stretching and yoga 1-2 times a week.
I want to be able to participate in outdoor activities with my family more actively by increasing my cardio endurance through HIIT workouts and gym cardio training.
I want to balance my diet by eating more protein and not depending on carbs like whole grains to get it. I will do this by carb cycling and learning new meals that have a more balanced macro profile.
Ok, now that I know what my goals as I can start to create my plan to get there.
Figuring out my calorie and macro needs
This is hard. Everyone’s needs are different and it depends on a lot of different factors. It makes it more difficult since different resources will give you drastically different answers.
Example:
I did a calculator on DamnRipped and it said I should be eating about 1300 calories. I did the exact same
So this is a tough one.
I went with about 1800 after I did some more research into my body type and diet since I do have some restrictions. When it comes down to it, take your best guess and adjust from there.
I am not a health and fitness expert, I’m just someone that cares about my well being. Do what feels right for you or what your trainer and/or doctor recommends.
Carb Cycling
So I’ve been a massive carb lover forever and since I choose not to eat meat, fish, eggs and most dairy, I’ve often depended on them to get my protein.
Since I haven’t been as active in recent years I’ve been storing more fat due to my high carb diet. I can’t give them up but I do want to balance it out so I chose to try a carb cycling approach (learn more here from this helpful video).
My plan:
Cycle through high, moderate and low carb days to balance hormones, increase muscle growth and fat loss while feeling full.
Pair workouts to energy levels as predicted from cycle.
- Related: How to Start a Bullet Journal
- Related: A Guide to BuJo Habit Trackers
Designing my spread:
I started off by writing out my plan and what I thought I wanted to include. Those things were, my diet needs, my workout plan, reminders of what to eat and meal ideas.
After I knew what I wanted to include in the spread it was a matter of laying it out so that there was room for everything I wanted.
I do that in pencil so I can adjust as necessary.
After I was happy with my spacing I drew in some of the details like my header and labeled each part of the spread.
I then inked in it and added detail to my header in the form of fading dots. I also made the line “journal” was written on
I chose to write in my calorie and macro needs at the top of this spread then made a grid with each day of the week down the side followed by columns for if it was a high, moderate or low carb day, what workout I was doing, then four weeks of tracking.
In each weekly tracking space I’ll write in my macros as tracked by my fitness app. I’m hoping to do this so that I can be accountable, see if I fell off at any point and see if there is anything I struggle with.
On the corresponding page I wrote in things that I will need to remember.
A list of healthy fat sources, low carb proteins and high carb veggies. These are the things that I want to focus on in terms of changing my dietary habits.
I gave myself a space for meal ideas and I think I will add a notes section as well. This way I can write in my thoughts, things I want to look into, solutions I’ve found, energy monitoring. Really anything that comes to mind.
What will you do?
I hope that this give you some insight as to what I think about what I’m creating custom spreads.
It’s super important to make sure that the spread serves a purpose for you in a way that really helps you achieve goals you’re
If the goal matters you’ll use the tracker/log you’re making.
The great thing here is that you can always adapt trackers as you go and see what works but you always have to start somewhere!
Show me your ideas and re-creations, tag me on Instagram @maggie.rae_
