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What to log, and a tracking habit you can keep

By Chris Ayers 5 min read

The most useful thing you can log is also the easiest: the first day of your period. One tap. Everything else is optional, and most of it is worth less than people think.

I know that sounds odd coming from someone who built a tracking app. But the reason doctors want you to track your cycle is narrower than the reason apps want you to. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in its guidance on girls and teenagers, calls the menstrual cycle a vital sign and says clinicians “should ask at every preventive care or comprehensive visit for the patient’s first day of her last menstrual period and the pattern of menses.” Two questions. The date, and the pattern. A log that answers both is already doing its job.

Why one cycle tells you almost nothing

The pattern is the harder of the two questions, and it is the one most people get wrong by guessing. A 2006 study in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing followed 141 healthy women through 1,060 cycles. Mean cycle length was 28.9 days, with 95% of cycles between 22 and 36 days. More to the point, 42.5% of the women had cycle lengths that varied by more than 7 days across their own cycles. The authors wrote that “there is considerable normal variability” and that the follicular phase, the first half, contributes most of it.

So your normal is a range, not a number, and you cannot see a range from one month. It is also why the advice on tracking symptoms asks for more than one cycle. ACOG, on premenstrual symptoms: “Each day for at least 2 to 3 months, write down and rate any symptoms you feel. Record the dates of your periods as well.” The NHS, on the same topic: “keep a diary of your symptoms for at least 2 menstrual cycles.” So give it at least two cycles before you read much into your own notes.

What is worth logging

In rough order of how much it earns.

That is the whole list. You can log more in Ferrabelle, from mood and energy to temperature and lab values, and some people want to. None of it is required for the app to learn your cycle.

The habit

I built the logging around one person first. Every cycle app Steffany had tried treated her training like it did not exist, and one by one she dropped them. So the bar was not “can she log everything.” It was “will she keep using it.”

What came out of that is on the website in a single line: “A few taps a day. Period, sleep, how the session felt, what you moved.” If your phone has an offline speech recognizer, you can log by voice instead, and the words never leave the phone. Both routes are built for the same moment, which is standing in the kitchen with thirty seconds and a cup of coffee.

A few habits that seem to hold.

Then, when the appointment comes, the printable doctor report (a Pro feature) lists your period dates and cycle lengths and marks any cycle outside 21 to 35 days. That is the date and the pattern, written down.

Steffany still uses it. Her favorite feature is not even the log; it is the short notes the app sends me, with her say-so, about how she is doing. But the notes only work because the log underneath them is a habit she kept.

This is general information, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor about your own health.

Ferrabelle is in a closed test on Google Play right now. If you want to try it, you can join at ferrabelle.com/testers.

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