I Track My Health Data in Markdown: Lessons in Digital Longevity | Hacker News Reader

I Track My Health Data in Markdown: Lessons in Digital Longevity

17 pointsbiohackerking16 comments

I’ve spent years tracking my sleep, diet, and exercise with apps and wearables. But here’s the problem: when an app gets discontinued or stops syncing, the data—and all the insights—disappear.

That’s why I’ve adopted a “file over app” philosophy for health tracking. Instead of relying on apps, I save everything in open, accessible formats like Markdown or CSV. These files are local, portable, and universally readable—ensuring my data outlives any app or platform.

Here’s how I do it: • Workouts, meals, and sleep logs go into plain text notes. • Trends and averages (e.g., weekly sleep hours) are calculated in Google Sheets. • Files sync to the cloud (Google Drive) and back up locally.

For example, my sleep log might look like this:

### Sleep Log (December 2024) - 12/01: 7.5 hrs (11:00 PM - 6:30 AM) - 12/02: 6 hrs (12:30 AM - 6:30 AM) - Felt tired, adjusted bedtime. - 12/03: 8 hrs (10:30 PM - 6:30 AM)

Why this matters: • Plain text lasts. It’s universally accessible and won’t be rendered useless if an app shuts down. • You stay in control. Apps come and go, but your files remain intact and usable for the long haul.

If you’re curious about the latest insights on health and longevity, I share them weekly in my newsletter "longer."

https://www.longer.media/subscribe

I understand the need to have a plaintext format, but when did we forget that spreadsheet exist? I’ve used that for decades. Markdown is not appropriate for such a task, and actually it’s the worst of the text formats and only got popular thanks to platforms like GitHub.

Use Calc in LibreOffice. That way you’ll get a powerful application that does everything you need, you can export to CSV, and you don’t need to use Google Sheets which is very bad for the usability, longevity, and privacy of your data. Also you’ll learn new skills.

And that solution is not complicated or worse, it removes an inefficient text format, and replaces Google with another tool that you control.

I also used markdown to track various things in my life. It's a simple file format that will exist for a long time.

But I thought there has to be a better way to self track, so now I'm building a customizable self-tracking app that will be able to export to markdown and CSV. Also writing my thesis on it.

Ok, but I think most popular health apps and wearables offer access to data via an API (allowing you to pull the data periodically) or through a CSV export. At Aidlab, if we didn’t provide this, most of our clients would quickly find an alternative.

By the way, which of the apps you’ve used have been discontinued

Well, Apple Health fixed this for me.

Ditto

me three

You might like this: https://datasette.io/ and it might even fill your blogging needs. Fully opensource (and there are extension to use llm's with it).

Seems like there is a need for an open format for health data that can be stored in/out of a database to avoid the app shutdown problem. Surely that exists with all the health data available via wearables ?

https://www.hl7.org/fhir/

I use Obsidian and store the data in my daily notes.

The cool thing that it's easy to create visualizations with different plugins

Which plugins do you use for visualisations?

How much time do you spend tracking this?

I spend about 5-10 minutes a day tracking, usually as part of my daily routine—logging meals, workouts, or sleep at the end of the day.

It’s quick because I keep the system simple (plain text files or spreadsheets), and it pays off when I need to review trends or insights later!

How do you remember a whole day worth of activities? Do you note them down on paper first?

I've been writing about my day every night since 2010. First with a proprietary app which before it folded allowed me to export as plain text then learning Emacs and using org-mode. You can't capture everything but I've learnt to remember my day. Apple allows health data export as an XML file.

I track my migraines on a markdown file, but that’s as far as I go

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