Customer Reviews

Moleskine Passions Wellness Journal

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I just got my Wellness Journal! Before buying it I was kind of frustrated that I couldn't find photos or a more in depth description of the pages (the bookstores in my area didn't have it in yet), so before I start using my journal I'm writing a quick review. This would be a 5-star rating IF the first 3 sections covered the same periods of time (goals section = 1 year, exercise section = 116 days, diet section = 29 days). This is a big enough flaw to me that I'm considering returning it.

For those still interested, here's what's included:

Food Calendar - Shows you what fruit/vegetables are available during which months of the year (both Northern and Southern Hemispheres)

Food Info - Gives some basic info for 7 dozen common foods (cal, carbs, protein, fat) with 62 blank spots for you to fill in your own (you can set the titles in this additional section to whatever you want, i.e. points, fiber, etc).

6 Labeled Tabbed Sections:

1. Personal Goals - within this section there are 3 types of pages: weekly goals, monthly goals, breakthrough moments. There are rows for up to 54 weeks (9 weeks per page). Each weekly space is enough to jot down a couple of sentences. The monthly goals start in January and end in December. There are 3 months per page, enough room for about 5-6 sentences. The breakthrough moments are blank versions of the weekly goals.

2. Exercise Log - 29 pages with 4 days on each page. The column headers are: date, exercises, time, distance/repetitions/workout notes. There is also a place to fill in intensity and cute little pictures to select the weather that day. If you're looking to fill in 4-5 workout items that'd probably fit, but you'd have to write little. If you're someone like me who wants to write, "Walking, 30 min, 2 miles, tired" then this will work well.

3. Diet - 29 pages with 1 day per page. This seems kind of dumb to me. Why would you only have 1 month of diet pages, 4 months of workout pages (assuming you workout everyday) and 1 year of personal goals. AUTHOR/EDITORS: Could you please fix this! Terrible, terrible design flaw.

4. General Health - 3 subsections, one for vitamins, herbs, other, one for healthcare, and one for body therapy.

5. Games-Sport - If you regularly play sports, this section allows you to record it: date, event, participants, result/score, challenge level. I don't play sports other than the Wii so I'd probably alter this section.

6. Inspirations - Blank pages to put people, places, photos, quotes, songs...

6 Blank Tabbed Sections - 12 pages each

Index where you can fill in the title for the included pages (all of them)

Stickers

The journal is generally well thought out with lots of useful sections and enough space to customise to suit your own 'wellness' activities. The section that hasn't been well thought through and that really spoils this journal is the 'Diet' section - each page is for a day but there are only enough pages for 29 days. In contrast the exercise log has enough spaces for about 120 days and the personal goals covers 12 months. I really like the journal, but it definitely needs a rethink about the time period it's intended to cover. If the time period was better thought through it would be a 5 star product.

The journal is organised as follows:

Planning - 2 pages with columns for event, date and notes
Seasonal foods calendar split into northern and southern hemispheres, covers 4 pages
Food facts (calories, carbs, protein and fat) over 3 pages with a further 2 pages to add your own foods and info
International clothing sizes, 1 page
Measures and Conversions, 2 pages

Named Tabbed Sections:
Personal Goals - 6 pages of weekly goals, 4 pages of monthly goals, 5 pages of breakthrough moments
Exercise Log - 29 pages with 4 sections per page with columns for date, exercises, time, distance & reps, workout notes and places to input the intensity and weather
Diet - 29 pages where each page covers a day and has areas for breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, night snack and notes
General Health - 6 pages each for: vitamins, herbs and other; healthcare; body therapy.
Games/Sport - Similar in look to the exercise log with with columns for date, event, participants and result/score with areas to rate the challenge level.
Inspirations - 20 pages with a space to write the title of the inspiration and the rest of the page is blank.

There are then 6 unnamed tabbed sections for your own personalisation.
There is an index at the back and a double pocket on the rear cover which contains 3 sheets of stickers - some for personalising the unnamed tabs and some for decorating the pages of the journal.

I agree with the other reviews that the Diet section is majorly flawed. I love the Journal, and it is perfect in all other respects, but I'm not sure what the practical reason was for only allotting 29 days worth of diet tracking pages, especially considering that approximately half the book is blank so you can customize as you want. Moleskine should have made the blank page section far smaller to create more space for the Diet section. You can go online and print blank diet pages to then paste/tape into the book, but what a chore! I guess that is what I will ultimately have to do, but unless Moleskine fixes this issue, I likely will not repurchase.

I used to receive Moleskine journals when I was a child. I LOVED them but somewhere between adolescence and adulthood I forgot their existence. I was very pleasantly surprised to see these at my local bookstore and then to see them on Amazon. The Wellness journal starts off with a 2 page spread of "Planning". I suppose one might use this for keeping track of milestones whether it's weight loss, starting new exercise classes, or keeping track of event participation.

The next section is a four page Food Calendar by hemisphere. I didn't find this part to be especially accurate, or maybe because I live in Florida our growing seasons are just different than the rest of the hemisphere. Then there are three pages of food facts including calories, carbs, protein, and fat followed by two blank pages you can fill in your own favorite foods. A few pages of sizes, measurements, and conversions follow and finally the journaling part begins.

The goals section has space for one years worth of goals by week and month, which I think is a great way to see progress throughout the year if you are on a wellness program. The exercise log allows for 116 entries, which might be typical of people who exercise 2-3 times per week.

The diet section seems to be getting the most complaints from other reviewers. I have to agree half-heartedly. Although I would prefer to use fitday (google it!) for something like that so I can see the breakdown of calories, carbs, and nutrients, I think that Moleskine could have greatly reduced the amount of space by 75. They give you an entire page to write your daily food!!! That is way too much space. I truly think they could have fit at least 2-4 days worth of food on one page.

General Health and Inspirations sections follow and then the fun begins. The last half of the journal is more like a true journal. It has six blank tabbed sections that can be completely customized for your goals. The final blank tab has several blank pages that I plan to use for photos.

I've read that people who journal their fitness and weight loss goals are more successful than those that try to keep it all in their head. For that reason, I'm excited to give this a try.

The main problem with this journal has already been expressed repeatedly: the division of pages is uneven, especially with regard to the diet section which only covers 29 days. Additionally, there's no place to track weight, measurements, or BMI over time. I would think a place for these would be the starting point of a wellness journal. Additionally, I'd prefer a day by day approach, tracking my diet, exercise, and progress in a linear fashion rather than having to switch from section to section to record different elements of my progress. One bright spot is that Moleskine seems to have recognized this shortcoming and compensated by adding three bookmarks and tabs for sections.
I love my Moleskine notebooks, lined, blank, and cahier, but though the materials and construction of this journal are excellent, the organization of content renders it almost useless.

I purchased this journal when a friend of mine was looking for a particular Moleskine journal, and as soon as i saw it, i fell in love .. after reading the reviews of how there's not enough paper in the diet section to last more than a month ... etc. i thought i'm not going to let that spoil my enthusiasm .. so i decided to compramise, instead of writing a day to day diet schedule, i thought why not put a whole weeks worth in one page, it certainly would fit, and i don't need to go into full details on how to prepare the food since it was the basic grilled chicken and a salad most of the time.. the journal will work just fine as long as you simplify it.
Get the journal, enjoy the concept, and get organized

In this computer age I was looking forward to a journal for my fiance to track the lifestyle changes she was making. Unfortunately I was disappointed by the organization of this journal. It does have some nice qualities.

Pros: Beautiful cover, my fiance loves carrying it in her purse, multiple ribbon bookmarks to keep your page in each section saved, and she loved the customizable stickers that came with it.

Cons: The Diet section is far too short. With a day taking up a whole page you don't even have one month's worth of pages. These pages would have been a lot more useful than the "Games & Sport" section.
The goals, exercise log, and general health sections are fine. The inspirations section is great for her but may not be applicable to those that aren't into storyboarding their visions that way. The blank sections are plentiful which helps to personalize the journal for the individual. However, that being said, it wasn't enough to steer her away from tracking the same things on an app for her phone instead.

Bottom line: It depends on what you are looking for. It may be right for some people, but it wasn't for my "Wellness" fiance.

I love journals in general and Moleskine products in particular. I'm trying to become healthier and more active, and it's always easier to do when you can see the steps you've taken, and the improvements you've made. The Wellness Journal is a wonderful tool to help you do just that.

There are some pages with content I can't imagine anyone needing: clothing size conversions from US to UK etc, the growing seasons for various foods in each hemisphere, the calories for certain foods, but then, I'm not using it as a diet journal, so this is a matter of personal preference. Fortunately, if you need the pages, but not the content, Moleskine has printable templates, and you can just print, cutout, and paste whatever content you'd rather have.

If you do decide to use this for a diet/nutritional wellness journal, you should be warned that despite having over a year's worth of goals and many entry slots for exercises and sports, there are only about 30 days worth of food journal pages in that section, and you'd need to make a jump over to the blank sections in the back to continue. Thankfully, the pages are numbered, and there's an index in the back of the book that makes jumping around in your journal easy and convenient.

I love the extra organizational boost of having a lot of really useful sections already included in attractive formats, and I've already customized some of the printable templates for my specific needs, making this a fantastic, stylish, personal tool that's really helping me achieve my goals.

This is a black hard cover Moleskin, and has lots of specific tabs inside for exercise, food, goals, etc.
Gave it to my son as he is trying to lose weight and he likes it. I love Moleskin soft covers best.

I purchased this for my wife, who was thrilled to receive it. Her appreciation for the journal is tempered only by its brevity as it is only good for 30 days. If it were a 3 month journal, we'd gladly give it five stars!