Journaling

I journal. It keeps me on track.

I don't 'journal' in the sense of the word that people think of - but I often do find myself typing some stuff out (like in an email I never send or just even in the Google search bar, or a Word Document)....and then just --- delete it.

Seems like typing it out, gets it out of my head and I can move on. Even though I don't see it again and no one else sees it. I've always laughed when I do it in an email (like I'll get an email from a co-worker and respond to it and write a bunch of stuff...the stuff I'd *like to say...but then delete it and write whatever my actual response is) -- like, "Oh, if I accidentally sent it that would be awful"..lol.

I don't journal per-sa, but now that I am back on here I have started to write notes every night, which reflects on things throughout the day that have impacted my eating/drinking, it is very useful for looking back to see how things are developing.

I call it my Food & Mood Diary.

RenaTX wrote: »

I would like to journal but I wish I could find a community like LiveJournal . I do not like that Livejournal is now Russian owned as it kind of worries me about the safety and it use to be a pretty active community but no more.

But other than the fact that I wish I could find something online which I don't need to setup like Wordpress I do keep a notebook to record health stats .

I am looking into Substack for writing and some aspects of community.

I've journaled off and on in the past, but nothing really specific...just kind of my day to day and it would always seem kind of silly and I'd stop. Recently I went back into therapy for a bout of depression and because my wife sat me down and told me that I needed to figure out what was going on because it was making her as crazy as it was making me (rollercoaster ups and downs).

This past Tuesday I was diagnosed bipolar 2 and one of the things my therapist wants me to do (not necessarily daily) is to journal at least once per week and reflect on my mood and also to journal anytime I feel that mood start to shift so that I can start better defining depressive, stable, and hypomanic episodes and look for triggers, etc. Good times...

I wish that I could find a great digital online free journal calendar

I've been using a physical, bullet journal-style one for weight loss this time around. It's an overlarge spiral-bound notebook with monthly dividers and very simple spreads. I'm slowly getting fancier (yesterday I added a colorful folded envelope that says 'Break in Case of Starvation' that has easy, 10-minute or less meals on the inside) and it gives me a lot of joy and little interactive elements to keep my brain happy. So far, I have a daily food diary, weigh-in log, reward page, a step counter/exercise calendar, NSV tracker, progress photos, and daily reflection pages. It's been such a huge motivator for me I've started using a separate journal for my writing and am thinking about making one for my art practice as well.

The main reason I decided to make a journal was because the last time I lost a significant amount of weight, I quit after a severe bout of depression. It was very easy to just not open the app. No one in my life cared if I lost weight or not. Once I was ready to try again, I realized that I needed to change some of my inner stories if I was going to succeed and a big part of that was making myself really look at what I was doing and how I was feeling on a daily basis.

So, I got the biggest, brightest notebook I could find and put it where I could see it. I make all my spreads a week ahead of time so, if I miss a day, it's very obvious and I won't let myself tear out pages to hide it. I also see that inactivity ripple across several spreads-- no logs means no step counts means no workout sticker means no weigh-in or measurements. If I have a hard day, I note it and talk about it. If I succeed, I have somewhere to celebrate. There's no judgment and it acts as a support system I create for myself.