Using a bullet journal is the latest craze, and I can completely see why. With all of the benefits of a planner but more flexibility and room for creativity, bullet journals fill a need we didn’t even know we had.
More of a planner person than the bullet journaling type? I use both a planner and two bullet journals. See how I use my planner to tackle big goals here.
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I have two bullet journals, because I like to keep home and work life separate – which is hard to do considering I work from home! Having a dedicated journal for each makes that easier. I am also working on a third bullet journal for a family member, using this dot grid journal (the two journals I was using previously contained blank, unlined, un-dotted pages).
In my “home” bullet journal I of course track mental illness symptoms such as mood, but I also track what I eat. Trim Healthy Mama, the lifestyle I have chosen to follow, can be a bit confusing when you are first getting started. I developed two fuel type tracker pages for meal types – one for when I was just starting with Trim Healthy Mama, and one for when I was further along in my journey and more aware of what fuel type each meal was.
As you can see, the spread is quite basic, but it does the job. It only tracks the simplest meal types – S, E, FP and XO. Each color corresponds to a meal type and allows me to see at a glance how I am doing at switching up my fuels and what meals I might need to eat more of. The “X” denotes a meal I did not eat. The second column is almost solid “X”s – that is because I often wake up late and did not eat a snack before lunchtime.
On the left hand side is the calendar date, and on top, the B, S, L, S, D, S marks whether the meal was breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack (all S’s).
Are you looking at these DIY Trim Healthy Mama fuel type trackers thinking, that’s way too much work?! I’ve got you! After awhile of DIYing these trackers for my personal bullet journal each month, I decided it was time to find an easier way … and created a printable version that works for either the beginner or the advanced user! You can get the printable tracker by signing up with the form below.
The Second Fuel Type Tracker Spread:
As you can see, the second spread is a more advanced version of the first fuel type tracker. It goes in depth on S meals – whether they are light, heavy, deep S, or S helper, as well as including “personal choice” meals and off plan meals. If I had continued using the first spread, I would have added a color for off plan as well. This is the spread I currently use.
I love to look back at the end of the month (or even during the month) and see what I need to adjust. Too many crossovers? Too many heavy S meals? Looking back I have a good idea of what I’m eating and what needs to be adjusted for me to keep losing weight or if I did well, to maintain my weight loss.
Although I did not use it as an example above, this spread is also great for tracking fuel cycles. Depending on how long the fuel cycle you have chosen is, the day would be solid “deep S” or whichever fuel you are currently on. Looking back you can see if you went off plan or ate the wrong fuel during your fuel cycle.
Do you have a method for tracking your Trim Healthy Mama fuel types? Let me know in the comments below.
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
[…] great way to see how well you are doing on your fuel cycle, and to track general, day to day meals. See how to DIY it here (or fill out the form for the printable […]