I wrote w8track to scratch an itch.

Earlier this year, a major project I was working on was abruptly canceled, and I suddenly found myself with a shortage of work. Determined to stay active during my downtime, I started hiking nearly every morning in the beautiful mountains here in Phoenix. It didn’t take long to realize I was losing weight from my increased physical activity. I started weighing myself every morning and logging the results in a notebook. It was helpful, but it didn’t allow me to visualize my weight over the longer term. Some days I gained weight, other days I lost, and it was difficult to spot trends. I wanted to know what my weight was doing on average. So I wrote w8track.

After a hot summer mostly spent indoors, I steadily put some weight back on. I use w8track to keep myself in check. Rather than examining the raw data, I focus on the chart w8track produces. Although the green daily line is interesting, I look primarily at relationship between the purple 7-day line and the pink 30-day line. Since I’m overweight, I’m looking for the purple 7-day line to be at or below the pink 30-day line. If it is, I’m trending in the right direction. If not, like right now, I need to review my levels of diet and exercise.

Here’s an interesting thing I’ve learned since I started using w8track: I weigh more on Mondays. When I was tracking on paper, I was frustrated with a noticeable increase every week. With w8track, I look at the 7-day average, which drops a Monday weight every time it picks up a new one. As a result, my Monday bumps cancel out!

I’d love to hear your personal stories about how you use w8track. Leave a comment!