One Week In: What a Notebook Taught Me About Strength and Health

A week ago I started keeping a new notebook.

I wanted somewhere to record the things that matter to my health: exercise, food, medications, energy levels, weight, steps, and one positive thing from each day. The result became my Strength & Health Log.

After only a week, I can already see patterns emerging.

This week included three dialysis sessions, several strength-training workouts, a trip to steward at Mid & East Antrim Pride in Ballymena, and more than 83,000 steps. The weekly average worked out at almost 12,000 steps a day.

What has surprised me most is how useful it has been to see everything in one place.

Living with a long-term condition can make progress difficult to recognise. It is easy to focus on the days when energy is low or plans need to change. Looking back through the notebook tells a fuller story.

I can see that I exercised before dialysis. I can see when I added doorway-assisted pulls to balance my workouts. I can see that a dialysis day still included more than 13,000 steps. I can see the difference between a quiet day at home and a day spent travelling across Ireland for Pride.

The notebook records more than exercise. It captures the context around it.

One day’s note records adding a new exercise. Another records returning to Ballymena for its second Pride parade. A note from dialysis records that the dietitian was impressed by the notebook itself. Those moments are part of the story too.

Fitness is often discussed in terms of targets and outcomes. For me, it is increasingly about participation. It is about maintaining strength, preserving independence, and continuing to take part in the things that matter.

This first week has not been perfect. There were days with takeaway food, days with low energy, and days when exercise was limited. Yet the overall picture is encouraging. The notebook shows consistency rather than perfection, and consistency is what creates change.

One week is a very short period of time. It is far too early to draw grand conclusions. It is enough time, however, to see that the habit is proving useful.

The pages are beginning to fill, and with them comes a clearer picture of daily life on dialysis: exercise, medication, travel, parish life, Pride, ordinary meals, and ordinary days.

For now, that feels like a good place to start.