Initially, I thought to start recording my meals on Instagram because it seemed more convenient. But if I’m to follow the principles of the IndieWeb movement, ideally I should store my food photo journal at my home site, so I decided to do a one-week experiment. I updated this post periodically throughout the week via WordPress.com’s mobile app, Jetpack.

Monday, January 23, 2023

Exercise: 8300 steps – I’ve started the habit of walking to a restaurant for dinner. Fortunately, I live in a walkable town, so it’s not tough to walk to the nearest restaurant. I seem to enjoy it!

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Oof today was definitely an “I ate waaaay too much” day 😅

Wednesday, Jan 25, 2023

Exercise: Took a nice, slow walk to and from the market today. The stop at the cafe for some coffee on the way back is always a highlight. Made 5000 steps just from that. My aim is to make 10000 steps today but I got to just 7000.

Thursday, 26 Jan 2023

Friday, 27 January 2023

Decided to do OMAD today. Drank chicken broth from 3pm onwards then ate at 630pm and was largely not hungry.

Saturday, 28 January 2023

Big party day with the Cumbu ladies! Needless to say, I wasn’t at all doing healthy food today. Stopped eating sometime around 3pm and didn’t eat until the next day.

Sunday, 29 January 2023

My resolve to have an OMAD day fell apart today. I believe this is largely due to my time of the month (menstrual cycle, let’s not be shy about it). I just get insanely hungry the week before my period! And guess what, I got my period the very next day, so my body just wasn’t having it and demanded FOOD FOOD LOTS OF GREASY CARBY FOOD PLEASE.

I obliged.

Thoughts

Here’s a confession – I really did not enjoy doing this! The app was handy, but not as user-friendly as say, the food diary app, Bitesnap. A couple of times I forgot to take photos, so had to rely on Unsplash for photos instead lol. Since I don’t even enjoy tracking in the first place, I need the experience to be easy and seamless, and updating it on my blog is not, well, seamless. So, this may be the first and last time I’m doing food tracking via my blog.

However, I’m glad that I did it as now have data on an important week — the week before my period! I have pretty (mostly) regular cycle, and I notice that my diet often get off the rails a week before my period, and this week’s journal really reflected that. Try as I might, I couldn’t control those carb and chocolate cravings and give in repeatedly.

After Christmas, I just stopped tracking my weight like I was doing consistently. This is partly due to my mindset of “I know I would put on weight so why bother?” So, I ended going an entire month without tracking and my diet was all over the place. I was semi-relieved to discover that when I weighed this week, I only gained 1 kg, though that could be down to water weight because my weight tends to soar a week before my period.

Oh well, onwards!