Bullet Journal for Weight Loss is not just about losing weight. It is about embracing the way to lead a healthy life and how to get yourself moving towards your ultimate goal. Bullet journaling can be super helpful in losing weight. A bullet journal, or BuJo, is a system of organizing and time management that was made popular by its creator, Ryder Carroll. Bullet journaling has been used for other things like planning, but it can also help you lose weight.
Weight Loss with a Bullet Journal
Can bullet journaling help you lose weight? Sure! If you already use a bullet journal to track your to-do list, you’ll find it easy to use your bullet journal to track progress toward your weight loss and fitness goals.
Bullet journaling can help you track the healthy changes you’re making to your diet and exercise routine. And, bullet journaling can clue you into patterns — like eating, sleep, and water intake — that impact your overall health.
For many people, the simple act of writing their goals down on paper reinforces their desire to accomplish them. And keeping a habit tracker can motivate you to “stick with it”, even when progress is slower than I’d like.
How to Start Using Bullet Journal
The basic bullet journal system is very simple. In your bullet journal, you can log tasks, events, and notes in short-form sentences — aka “bullets”. It helps you organize your thoughts and tasks and intentionally plan your schedule.
To start your first bullet journal, you’ll only need a few supplies. I recommend purchasing a dot grid notebook like a Moleskine or a Leuchtturm. Then, you’ll need a few nice pens to start. Later, you can add some nice pastel highlighters, some brush pens, or even some colorful markers to decorate up your bullet journal spreads.
Using a Bullet Journal for Weight Loss
Of of the greatest things about this free-form planning system is that it’s infinitely customizable. You can adapt it however you’d like to suit your own needs and lifestyle.
So, if one of your goals is to improve your health and fitness — you can make a bullet journal spread for that!
There are a lot of ways that you can set up your bullet journal to support your weight loss and fitness goals. You can make your layouts as simple or as elaborate as you want. It’s totally up to you. Here are some of my favorite ideas.
Weight and Measurements Log
First things first — You don’t have to log your weight or measurements to be healthy. That said, some people find it very helpful to track their weight in order to see progress and stay motivated. Remember that weighing yourself too often won’t be a good indicator of your true weight loss progress. So, try to measure yourself only once a week — preferably at the same time and under the same conditions from week to week.
Activity Tracker
It’s a great idea to set activity goals to improve your overall health — regardless of whether you’d like to lose weight.
You can create a mini-tracker for activity goals, like reaching 10,000 steps. Or, you can use your bullet journal to log miles. If you are interested in strength training, you can even set up a spread to track your one-rep max for certain exercises.
Healthy Meal Planner
If you are trying to watch what you eat, try using your bullet journal for healthy meal planning.
You can write down a list of healthy groceries to buy that you can bring with you to the grocery store. Not only will this help you stick to your diet plan of healthy foods — but it can also help you save money and avoid impulse purchases.
And some people use a spread in their bullet journal to pre-plan their meals for the upcoming week. Planning your meals ahead of time will help you make healthy choices, and save you time in the kitchen. Plus, meal planning in your bullet journal can help you avoid the temptation of weeknight take-out.
Calories and Macros Counter
You can also track your intake of calories, carbohydrates, protein, healthy fat, and veggies in your bullet journal. This can be a great way to see trends in your eating habits. And, seeing your intake written out on the page may inspire you to stick with your new, healthier eating habits!
Healthy Habits Log
Keeping a log of your healthy habits can be a great motivator! Using habit trackers in your bullet journal will help keep yourself accountable to your fitness goals.
You can use a water intake tracker to make sure you get in at least 8 glasses a day. You can set up a sleep log to make sure you are getting enough rest. Or you can fill in a gym log to motivate you to keep your streak going!
Filling in a little square each day can help you feel good about your accomplishments — regardless of whether you’ve lost weight or not.
7 Simple Ways to Lose Weight Using Your Bullet Journal
1. Set Goals
First of all, you need to set goals for yourself. And as with all goal-setting, your goals should be SMART. That is: Smart, Measurable, Aachievable, Relevant and Timebound.
So some ideas for some great weight loss goals would be:
- Lose 10kgs by the end of the year
- Fit into my size 8 jeans in 3 months
- Complete a half marathon in 6 months
Make sure you’re realistic about your goals. There is probably no way that you’re going to drop two dress sizes in two weeks, unless you were horrifically sick!
Write your goals down in your bullet journal, to make yourself accountable. You can even create a great tracker for your goal to make your weight loss goal seem less daunting.
In this example has a goal to lose 45 pounds and has created a tracker to help her mark off each round she loses! Isn’t it cute?
2. Meal Planning
Do you know that saying – “Abs are made in the kitchen”?
If you really want to lose weight, then you need to watch what you eat. You could spend hours at the gym, but that weight won’t shift if you’re still eating donuts and cake all the time. Or constantly binging on delicious take-away food.
A great way to use your bullet journal for weight loss is to meal plan, so that you have more control over what you eat. And also when you eat it.
Sit down and create a spread in your bullet journal where you can write down all the meals you plan on eating for the week. With this you can also add extra fancy fitness stuff like calories and macros.
Here are some cute examples of meal plans.
3. Shopping List
Now that you’ve planned out your meals, you need to go supermarket shopping to buy the ingredients to make them! (unless you’re filthy rich and you have people who do your shopping and cooking for you, or if you’re going to eat out all the time!).
Ok, so have you ever been to the supermarket when you’re hungry, and undecided about what to have for dinner? You end up buying anything and everything right? And when you get home, you realise that you haven’t bought anything that will make a healthy meal and you’ve bought all the chips!
To avoid that, you need to make a grocery shopping list (YAY LIST!!)
But you also need to base that list on the meal plan you created earlier.
Another huge tip: REMEMBER to take your bullet journal with you to the supermarket so you can check off the things on your list as you put them in your shopping trolley. And stick to the list at all costs!
Not only will this help you stick to your meal plan of healthy foods, but it could save you some money as well by avoiding those superfluous purchases.
Here are a couple of ideas for shopping lists in your bullet journal:
4. Keep a Food Diary or Meal Log
Still having trouble sticking to your meal plan? Another way to be accountable to yourself is to keep a food diary or a meal log in your bullet journal. Simply write down everything you eat. The act of doing this may make you think twice before you eat that chocolate bar.
Still find that this isn’t really helping? Create an Instagram account and post photos of you meal log for the whole world to see!
5. Water Intake
Drinking water helps boost your metabolism, helps cleanse your body of waste and also can act as an appetite suppressant. So you really should drink more water. Something I tell myself to do every single day
To help yourself up your water intake, try creating a water tracker in your bullet journal.
HOW TO MAKE A WEIGHT LOSS JOURNAL
Just saying “I want to get fit” isn’t going to be a useful goal. Instead, have a specific goal then break it down into those important and trackable actions!
Using personalized trackers to suit your goals and steps will help you reach your fitness goals faster!
There are some easy fitness and weight loss journal ideas that can get you started and help you set a bullet journal for weight loss goals.
- Bullet Journal Meal Plan
The first thing you should have is a meal plan!
It’s a great way to help you make great choices for what to eat and take away those last-minute grocery store shop temptations.
Being organized with your meals also frees up time. You can use this to do other things towards your goals, like a quick home workout.
- Habit Trackers for Weight loss
There are a few things I personally track when I am trying to lose weight but these will, of course, be unique to you.
I find that I am an emotional eater ( chocolate and ice cream all the way if I am feeling a little low). So for me, a Mood Tracker is really helpful to see any patterns with my moods. I can then find a way to help plan ahead and stop the emotional eating.
- Weight Tracker Bullet Journal
Writing down your weight with dates is a really important step if you are trying to lose pounds.
Of course, it’s not all about weight but about measurements too. I would suggest you keep track of both.
You will sometimes find, especially if you are exercising that you will not see much difference on the scales but will notice big changes in your measurements.
- Water Tracker
Making sure you drink enough water is not only beneficial for your health but it can really help with weight loss.
Make sure you add a water tracker to your bullet journal spreads
Other ideas which you could add are a calorie tracker, sleep tracker, sugar intake counter and lots more.
- Step Counter For Bullet Journal
One of the easiest ways to get moving is to count your steps! Make it easy to know how you are going by adding a step tracker into your journal. Be sure to add a step counter app to your phone or get a Fitbit so you know just how many steps you do each day.
- Exercise Log
An exercise log or bullet journal fitness tracker can be easily personalized to fit your goals and action steps. Make sure you log all those important numbers and details so you can see your progress towards your goal clearly.
A simple but effective bullet journal fitness log By @librariana
There are plenty of fitness challenges you can join along with or even make up your own.
It’s a fun and actionable way to reach your fitness goals. You could do a 30 Abs Challange, distance run challenge, or anything else that you can break down to get to your big goal.
So, what are your fitness and health goals? I would love to hear all about them and see how you use your bullet journal to achieve them.