Just Lose It

So I am preparing, yet again, to start another "get back in shape" routine. Last summer, when my heart was set on it, it was pretty damn easy to drop the weight I did, and as quickly as I did it. Hitting the gym 5-6 times a week and eating right definitely agreed with me....whereas, not going to the gym and eating crap all day, every day, has not.

I've ballooned back up to 240 lbs. It's still not as bad as last summer, when I weighed in at an all-time high of 245 lbs just before I changed my lifestyle, but still....being in the 240s is kinda scary. I'm not exactly tall at 5'10". I'm not exactly young at 33. I'm not exactly muscular anymore either.

I won't officially start my diet/exercise program until Monday, but I have been making small strides here and there in preparation of it. I can do things like this cold-turkey, but I'd much rather ease into it. So a lot of my snacks have been healthy choices lately. I am back to having one low-sodium V8 per day, even though I still wince every time I down it. Juice instead of pop as my sugary drink of the day at work. Saying no, or at least postponing, the bad cravings. Example; I bought a Milky Way at lunch yesterday because I had a STRONG craving for it. I never ate it. I will eat it sooner or later, I am sure, but I denied myself that craving for a while. If I only act on them every other time, I'm doing twice as well as I normally would.

Postponing those indulgences has another upside for me. Doing stuff like that often drives Mark crazy. He and I like a lot of the same things, so when I buy a candy bar or cookies or something that we both like, only to put it on top of the fridge for a few days, or even weeks in some cases, he notices it right away....but can't dig in to whatever is there without asking me first. And when he finally does ask, I always get a kick out of it.

While that is always funny, I think my favorite one wasn't even him asking me about it....it was him TELLING me about it. I don't remember exactly what I had put on top of the fridge, or how long it had been there, but it must have been around Christmas time last year....because I am sure it was a gift. Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure it was an assortment of Godiva chocolates. It was Friday night, and I had a class on Friday nights until 9pm during that semester. I walked in from class, completely worn down from a full week of school and a full week of work and just wanted to grab my laptop and chill out for a while on the couch or in bed. Mark had a different idea.

"Ok. The statute of limitations has run out. I am having some of that chocolate, with or without you....", quoth the Shark.

I pondered that for a second, then simply said, "Alright....let's see what we've got."

I think we spent the next couple hours eating candy and playing Xbox, but that isn't what matters. The greatest thing about that was the look he had on his face when he was telling me about the statute of limitations. He had this fiendish desperation behind his "stern" words about taking the chocolate one way or the other. I've known the guy my whole life, and I have seen that look more than a few times....but that one really sticks out.

SO, back from that tangent now. The real reason I started this post was Lose It! It's an app for iPhones and iPods that helps you track your diet and exercise. You make a little profile of yourself (age, gender, weight, weight loss goal) and it plots out your target caloric intake for each day to lose the weight at the pace you set. I have always done very well when I kept a food journal and/or a daily weigh in log. This will remind me to weigh in every day and, since I ALWAYS have my iPod on me wherever I go, this will be much easier to do every time I have a meal, or even a snack, than a food journal would be.

One of the things I like the most about this app is that it has the caloric value for pretty much anything I would eat already stored. I have NO idea how many calories a McDonald's Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Biscuit has in it....but by adding that to my Lose it! profile this morning, I see that I had 887 calories in those 2 biscuits this morning, my last trip to McDonald's for a while, and that I washed it down with another 150 calories in that can of Pepsi I had. In a few minutes I will be adding my daily V8 to the list, as well as my mid-morning snack.

I haven't looked that far into it yet, but I think there is a way to sync Lose It! with twitter and blogs....might be that I can get in a post every few days without even trying.