Diet is Die with a T.

I knew it would come eventually once the exercise thing was ingrained in my schedule (well, mostly… it has been established that days on which you put your back out can have a negative effect on regular attendance) – but the switch in my head was flipped and I can’t even tell you how it happened. Oh, wait… yes I can.

The switch was an unimpressive weigh in at the gym; one on which the needle went up, not down.

This was a displeasure. This was also not [ahem] for reasons of the ‘moon’ as it were… this was a reasonably clear case of diet outpacing the exercise.

I duly did some research on the web about various programs… Lite ‘n Easy was top of the list after a couple of friends had found it quite successful – it’s a program where your food for the week is delivered in insulated boxes and you don’t have to lift a finger to cook – (I think you can probably pay extra for someone to come feed it to you as well…). This has its appeal in taking out the guess work… but it isn’t cheap and I actually quite like half an hour in the kitchen at the end of the day… so I discounted it.

I did also have a bit of a think about Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig but didn’t even get so far as to check out their websites. I’ve done WW before, I know the drill. I also put on all the weight I lost on it and then some… so it was a heck of a short term investment I wasn’t keen to try again…

So, maybe against all good sense, I decided to D.I.Y this diet caper and what better place to start than my iPhone.

I know, right? Isn’t that JUST the kind of thing I’d do?

I researched apps for weight loss and the highest rated one also happens to be [yay!] free – so I downloaded it and started putting it through its paces… if you want to have a look, you can find it on the web here – http://www.myfitnesspal.com/mobile.

Basically, it’s a calorie counter app. You set it up with your profile, your starting weight, your goal weight and the amount of weight you’d like to reduce by each week and the app advises a calorie limit for each day to get you toward achieving that goal. Then, meal by meal you input what you’ve eaten and the application keeps a running total of calories consumed and calories remaining for the day. Where a particular brand product may not be in the database I can input the nutritional information provided on product and when the app syncs that data becomes available for other users!

I use two other applications on my phone to help this business along. One is A₂Z Conversions which is useful for converting oz to grams and vice versa (the MFP site is ‘merican so sometimes that data’s not available in metric measures), the other is LiteTest’s Calorie Converter 1.0 which calculates back and forth between calories and kilojoules, again MFP measures calories and a lot of the nutritional info is measured in kilojoules here in Australia.

There’s a whole bunch of social tools on the MFP website so all the benefits of something like WW where you have ‘group sessions’ to learn tips and tricks to help you along, and Jenny where you have your own weight loss coach are taken on by the social network of other people in the same boat… from the comfort of your own sofa… how. cool. is. that???

I know, I know, right now probably half or more of you are rolling your eyes and thinking “how tedious” or going that step further to “Dee’s always seemed a bit off her head, now we have proof”. I on the other hand love databases and keeping track and planning around how many calories I have left of a day… I love the idea of the social network/forum/community idea of the website though I’ve not jumped in and ‘friended’ anyone yet – and well, yes, maybe I’m weird… but hey… it’s working.

I jumped on the scales at the gym yesterday and since that last ill fated weigh in I’ve lost 1.5 kilos; bringing the total lost so far to 6.5 (that’s 1.024 stones, for my British readers and 14.330lb for you ‘mericans).