Never Stop Never Stopping: A bullet journal exercise log

I have this vague recollection that in a previous blog entry I vowed to update more frequently. Upon recent reflection, it would appear that I’m a shameless liar. Aaaaaaaaaanyway:
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In an earlier blog entry I shared with you my mild obsession with my bullet journal – something I use to log, track or otherwise organize various aspects of my life. Some of these trackers, like my words-per-day chart, are geared directly towards my writing. Others; however, have more general everyday application, like my exercise log. It’s because I’ve reached a very significant milestone in my tracking since I first started the practice at the end of 2016 that I wanted to share with you another one of my bullet journal entries. Hold onto your hats, folks, this one’s colourful:

I would like to say the chart is self-explanatory but I’ve made that mistake in the past and I’m not about to do it again. Apparently not everybody can readily understand what’s in the mind of a madman. Each “block” of varying size appears underneath the label for its respective month. As you can see from the very depressing months of November and December 2017, it starts as a blank outlined square. Once I do an activity that constitutes exercise, I fill in one square.

There’s a legend at the bottom of the page that indicates the kinds of activities that make it in here. Some are fairly straight-forward, like running, swimming, and yoga. Others have some caveats. The biking one for instance, refers to actual hard-pedaling for distance (although I suppose calling my pedaling “hard” is being a bit generous). The 30+ minute walk usually refers either to a straight walk longer than 30 minutes, or a couple of intense walks at around 15-20 minutes each. Even if I ended up walking for hours that day, I still give myself only one light green square for that day, otherwise the light green would be too dominant here.

The most flexible category here is “gym”. This has included everything from an actual trip to the gym, to a particularly intensive chore day, to a half-hour session of Beat Jedi on the VR. And if you laughed at that last one, how about you try swinging your arms for 30 minutes to the tune of “Gangnam Style” and then tell me it wasn’t a workout.

So long story short, any time I exercise, I fill in one square on the chart, completing them in a sort of spiral pattern. To better see how the spiral works, look at the following months in succession: May 2017, March 2018, April 2018, December 2016, and so on.

So in the end you end up with a log that not only allows you to see the types of activity you’ve been doing, but also the relative volume of said activity month over month. I like this particular chart also because of how much time is captured in a single 2-page spread. Here we see 21 months worth of exercise, and as you can see, much can change over that time.

Early on in the process, there was a lot of running and swimming, and generally I was pretty active. Then it all kind of fell away for over a year (and there’s reason for that, if you feel like reading up on it). Running was replaced by biking due to another in a string of running injuries, and swimming never went back on the table because I switched jobs and no longer had a YMCA within walking distance of my office. I guess the other couple of things to note is the brief appearance of Yoga, which had to be put on hold due to lingering wrist sprain, and the last ice hockey game I’ve played so far, owing mostly to a busy life with two kids and the rink being a half-hour drive away. But hey, I scored two goals in that game, and was apparently dubbed the “Winter Soldier” by the team captain. And if there’s one thing I love collecting, it’s badass nicknames (it’s a very small collection).

Then after hitting rock bottom late last year, and then slowly getting out and walking in the spring, I finally turned things around, and had my most active months yet. This culminated in the most recent month where I set another record for having times I’ve exercised that month.

Some of you may not see this as a particularly big deal, but between my work and my hobbies, I’ve never been the most active person. A lot of this takes effort for me. Exercise has to be squeezed in before work so most of the time I’m up at 6 am to get this done. Walks are fit in at lunchtime, and thank goodness for Pokemon Go to help me get out of the office for a bit of fresh air.

And I think having this tracker helps as well. Not only does it add that one extra piece of motivation – being able to go home and fill out another square, but it also allows me to see how far I’ve come, and how much I’ve overcome. No matter what life throws at me, whether family tragedies, or injuries, or change in jobs, no matter how much I falter, I end up picking it all up and not abandoning my overall fitness goals.
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And I think this one of the important things to accept about life, sometimes goals don’t arrive in the way you expect them to come. Sometimes there will be a drought. And this relates to writing as well. Whether a string of rejections or a prolonged case of writer’s block, life is a marathon and not a sprint. There will be ups and there will be downs and when you’re in a down it’s important to recognize it for what it is – temporary.