There are a lot of habits I’ve had for a long time in my life. Some of them are necessary for my life and basically are things I do without a thought anymore. Some are things that are for my health that I do and maybe sometimes need a reminder to do (such as having an alert on my calendar each month to throw out my old contact lenses and use fresh ones). And there are some habits that I started doing because they were good for me in some sense and I’ve just kept them up because it’s routine.
But I’ve been doing some of my habits and routines for a long time just because I have been doing them for a long time and I don’t know if they still benefit me in any way. But they are things I still am aware of and track and I have to remember to do them or I feel like I forgot something. And as my schedule gets busier again and as I try to build my life again after having so little to do for so long, I have started to wonder if it’s worth it to continue doing these things just because I have been doing them for years.
There are 2 main habits I think about when debating if I should stop. First, tracking my food. I’ve been doing this for so long and have even made it a monthly challenge before. And in a way, it does keep me sane when I have a binge episode because I can have a reality check when I need it. But at the same time, unless I need that reality check I don’t always track everything I eat. Because of my schedule, I’m not always eating specific meals but instead eating small meals and snacks throughout the day. I know there is debate if having specific meals is better than grazing or snacking, but this isn’t about that. Based on what I see on the scale and how my clothes fit, I’m eating a very similar amount either way so I’m not worried about that. But on days that I graze, I rarely enter all my food. I might just add my breakfast and then nothing else. Or I’ll add one thing I ate but not the entire meal. Figuring out how much I’m eating is necessary, but the serving size from a container might not match up with the food tracking apps, so it can get frustrating.
Since I’m not usually tracking everything, I have started to question why I do it. For a long time, it was because I wanted to keep up my streak on the app in case I was going to go back to tracking everything. But I could always start back up without having a streak on the app. And maybe not focusing on tracking whatever I think of will motivate me to focus on my food in another way. I’m not sure yet.
The other thing I’ve been questioning tracking has been my daily steps. This again was a past monthly challenge that I kept up for a long time. But things came up in life and it’s been a while since I’ve had a 10,000 step day on my FitBit app. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been hitting 10,000 steps, they just aren’t always being tracked. I don’t wear my Fitbit that much during the day. I do have a clip so I can put it in a pocket or in my bra, but it’s not comfortable anymore. During my workouts, I used to keep it clipped to my pants, but that was bothering me too. My phone does track steps, but it’s not as accurate as wearing my Fitbit. And I know I could wear it as a watch, but I like my regular watch more and I don’t like the look of my Fitbit on my wrist. I do still use it every night to track my sleep because that is valuable information for me, but that’s all I’ve been able to accurately track for a long time.
So just like with the food tracking, I’m wondering what the benefit is for me to be half-tracking things. This one doesn’t concern me as much as the food tracking one goes, it’s more about me being ok not wearing my Fitbit or trying to find a random place to clip it to or put it when I go out somewhere. So accepting it as just a sleep tracker, for now, is what I think I want to do. That doesn’t mean I can’t change my mind and wear it if I’m going out somewhere and want to track my steps. But I’m not going to worry too much about it and look at what the app says each day for my total steps. I know those haven’t been accurate for a while, but I still have been looking at them and they do make me think about if a day was a good one or a not-so-good one. Having that stress off my mind might help.
Stopping these habits won’t change that much about what I’m already doing each day. I just won’t be tracking them and using them as a judgment of how I’m doing. And if I start to feel like I’m getting out of control or panicked, I can start tracking again. But since I’ve been only doing a fraction of the tracking I should be doing anyway, I don’t think this will make that much of a difference other than having a few fewer things to worry about in my daily routine.
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