In addition to weight tracking....

Thinking out loud...I have only been reading posts for a couple of months and only 11 days post-op, but I realize that I need ways to track my progress in returning to HEALTH following a major life change like this. I guess the medical profession tracks quantitative measures like WEIGHT and BMI which are easy to collect. My vitamin study people trach the BODY MEASUREMENTS (shoulders, chest, waist etc.).

I think for some more important quantitative indicators, WALKING DISTANCE and MINUTES EXERCISING would be far better to track so that I can focus on moving about. And, even more difficult, is the tracking of OVERALL CONDITION, HELPFULNESS TO OTHERS and . That could be a key to happiness when people ask "how are you doing?".

Please send me any other metrics, whether quantitative or qualitative.

With so much weight to lose, I want to only be aware of my decreasing measure in WEIGHT TO REACH GOAL which is looking forward and forgetting where I came from.  Just thinking....

Hi, 

I'm 4 days post op and I've been using the Baritastic app to track protein, exercise, water, weight, etc. You can chart or graph your progress. I don't know if this helps. 

Be Well!

Ignore my first ticker. lol

Overall goal of WLS - to hava a healthy and happy relationship with food and your body

everything they check when you go to the dr = heart rate, b press, meducations and streghts you have to take

return ti resting heart rate

If you want to track moods or some of the emotional stuff with wls there are some apps you can check out. Some of them are to track things like how were you feeling when you wanted to eat this or that & find ways to resolve those problems or at least identify any potential problems.

There's recovery record-eating disorder management inc

pocket cbt- cognitive behavioral therapy

stigma  you can chart your mood with this app

happier

breathe kinda for meditation

talkspace online therapy

companion

dbt

not sure if this was the kind of thing you were looking for, most of these apps are free. I use them for an iPhone but they probably have android versions too.

Thank you T ...I am going to look at these for sure.  Appreciate you.

I log all my food on MyFitnessPal. 1419 days now. I can go back and look at my eating patterns to make adjustments.

Fitbit is great for activity. I have 14 million steps logged.  If you pay for their premium, you can generate more reports and charts than you could ever want.

If you have a Fitbit account, go to Trendweight.com. it will give you graphs of your weight loss, and extrapolate your data and show future loss. It's fantastic.

Hey Time...a little piece of advice regarding your last line, don't ever forget where you came from.  2,3,10 years from now when you have lost alot of your bulk, you want to remember how it was to be MO and the elements that contributed to getting there.

The reason I believe this is so important is because when we let our guard down and "normalicy" is the narative so returns those elements that got us to MO and down that poor health road we go...justifications and excuses being the gasoline.

I guess what I am saying is just as important as creating new habits and lifestyle changes is understanding where we came from. (I'm sure there is some "Confucious says" for this wisdom quip...but I'm just not that wise)

This might sound silly, but this is one thing I really like about Facebook's "on this day" feature.  Every day I check my posts over the years on that specific day, and it's pretty inspiring to see where I was and how far I've come.  Keeping a journal and revisiting old posts would work the same way - I know that journals exist where one page is "January 1" for example, and you write about January 1 on the same page for five consecutive years.  

I'm a professional data nerd and survey analyst, so I do enjoy numbers. I think it's possible to quantify things that are a bit more "fuzzy" as well, so here are some things I do.

? You'll get more numbers at your doctor's appointments that are great to track. Cholesterol level and A1C are great ones! Blood pressure and resting heart rate are great too.

? I do a bit of cycling, and I use an app (MapMyRide) that will track things like distance, pace, etc. I can connect my bluetooth heart monitor, too, and plug that into my dashboard. Being able to see trends-- such as "you beat your time on this particular 2-mile segment by 20 seconds today"-- is super motivating.

? Set a non-scale-related goal that you want to reach by, say, a year out, and assess your progress each month. Mine were to get off my CPAP, stop my blood pressure medication, and ride 40mi in the city bike race. Tracking my BP and cycling progress was an enormous motivator!

? Fitness trackers are a great idea. I know several people who swear by their Fitbits, I use a Google Watch to do something similar. I can track distance and steps, mine does heart rate as well, and I can set it up to vibrate if I've been in one spot for more than 20 minutes. It all gets plugged into an app so I can compare it to my other data.

? To track personal/emotional wellness, there are some great apps for that. I like www.coach.me, it lets you "check in" on new habits. Drink enough water, get to bed on time, all sorts of things. There are also some great "mood tracker" apps for iOS and Android both which let you basically "check in" and rate how you're feeling at any time. Energy, anxiety, all sorts of things.