Utilities Guide
Notebook, Gallery, and Shopping are everyday tools built into BodySitRep. They work alongside your health trackers so everything stays in one place.
📓 Notebook
What it does
Notebook collects every note you have written across all your trackers and shows them in one place. It also lets you write personal notes that are not tied to any tracker.
Think of it this way: if you wrote something in the Blood Pressure notes field on Monday, something in the Headache notes field on Tuesday, and something in Nutrition notes on Wednesday, Notebook shows all three. You do not have to open each tracker separately to find them.
The three views
My Notes is for personal entries. Tap "+ New" to write a note. It gets encrypted and saved. Use this for anything: reminders, goals, thoughts, observations that do not belong in a specific tracker.
By Tracker shows a list of trackers that have real notes in them. Tap a tracker to see all the notes you wrote in that tracker's logs, with dates and context. If you logged 15 Blood Pressure entries and 8 had notes, you see those 8 notes with their reading values and dates. Empty trackers do not appear. Placeholder values like "skipped" or "N/A" are filtered out automatically.
By Day picks a date and shows every note from every tracker on that day, plus any personal notes. Use the left and right arrows to step through days. At the top, you see a summary: how many total notes, how many trackers, and how many personal notes.
Real-life scenario: reviewing your week
You have a provider appointment on Friday morning. Thursday night, open Notebook and tap "By Day." Step backward through each day of the week. For each day, you see exactly what you wrote about your symptoms, medications, meals, and mood. In five minutes, you have a detailed summary of your week that you can reference during the appointment.
This is significantly more useful than trying to remember what happened on Tuesday.
Tips
- Write a note every time you log a tracker entry, even just one sentence. "Bad headache after lunch meeting" is enough.
- By Tracker is great for seeing all your pain notes or all your mental health notes in sequence.
- By Day is great for appointment prep or end-of-day review.
- Notes are encrypted. Only you can read them.
📸 Gallery
How photos work
When you log a Nutrition entry, you can attach one photo. That photo is stored on your device (not on any server) and appears in Gallery automatically. Gallery is a read-only grid of all your nutrition photos, sorted by date.
One photo per entry
Each Nutrition log entry supports one photo. If you eat three meals in a day and want to photograph all three, log three separate Nutrition entries, one per meal. Each captures the meal type, what you ate, and one photo.
Using Gallery for meals
- Open the Nutrition tracker and log a meal.
- Tap the photo button and take a picture or choose one from your library.
- Save the entry.
- Open Gallery from the Utilities section on the Home screen.
- See your photo in the grid. Tap it for the full-size view with the date.
Over time, Gallery becomes a visual food diary. Scroll through it during a provider visit or use it yourself to notice changes in what you eat.
Privacy
Photos are stored on your device only. They are never uploaded to any server. If you clear your browser data or switch devices, photos do not transfer. This is a deliberate privacy choice: your health photos never leave your phone.
🛒 Shopping
The idea
You are at home and someone says "we need milk." You open BodySitRep, tap Shopping, and type "milk." Done. During the week, you add more items: bread, Tylenol, vitamins, toilet paper. Saturday morning, you tap "Go Shopping" and head to the store with your list ready.
Building your list
On the Shopping screen, type an item name in the add bar at the top. Pick a category using the emoji selector (Groceries, Medication, Supplements, Personal Care, Fitness, Household, or Other). Tap the + button. The item appears on your list.
To edit an item after adding it, tap the pencil icon. A sheet opens where you can change the name, category, quantity, or add notes like "the blue box, not the red one." Tap Save when done. Tap Remove if you no longer need it.
At the store: Go Shopping
When you arrive at the store, tap the big "Go Shopping" button at the bottom of your list. The screen switches to shopping mode. Your items are grouped by category so you can work through the store section by section.
As you find each item, tap it. A green checkmark appears and the text gets a strikethrough. The item does not disappear. It stays visible until you check out. If you change your mind, tap it again to un-cross it.
Checking out
When you are done shopping, tap the green "Checkout" button at the bottom. The checkout screen asks a few quick questions:
- Store. Tap a chip for the store you are at: Walmart, Target, Homeland, Aldi, and others. If your store is not listed, tap "Other" and type the name. The app saves your custom store so it appears as a chip next time.
- Total spent. Optional. Enter the amount on your receipt if you want to track spending.
- Other items. Did you buy things that were not on your list? Tap "Yes" and type a quick note like "grabbed cold medicine and snacks." This helps explain why the total is higher than the list.
Tap "Finish." All crossed-off items become purchase history. Any items you did not cross off stay on your active list for next time.
Frequently Purchased items
After a few shopping trips, the app starts showing a "Frequently Purchased" section on your list screen. These are items you have bought before, sorted by how often you buy them. Milk, eggs, bread, your regular medications: whatever you buy regularly will appear here.
To add one back to your list, just tap it. One tap. It goes straight onto your active list.
If something shows up that was a one-time purchase (like a grill or birthday gift), tap the X next to it. It will not appear in suggestions again.
Custom stores
The first time you type a custom store name at checkout (like "Village Market" or "Country Feed"), it gets saved automatically. Next time you check out, that store appears as a chip alongside the defaults. You can remove custom stores by tapping the X on the chip.
A real week with Shopping
Monday. You realize you are almost out of your blood pressure medication. Open Shopping, type "Lisinopril refill," category Medication. Add "milk" and "eggs" to Groceries while you are at it.
Wednesday. Your partner says you need paper towels. Open Shopping, add "paper towels" to Household.
Friday. Check the Frequently Purchased section. Bread and orange juice appear from last week. Tap them to add. Your list now has 6 items.
Saturday morning. Tap "Go Shopping." Drive to Walmart. Cross off items as you find them. At checkout, tap "Checkout," select Walmart, enter $47.82, note you also grabbed cold medicine. Finish. Done for the week.
Next Saturday. Lisinopril, milk, eggs, bread, and OJ are all in your Frequently Purchased section. Rebuild your list in 10 seconds.