I’m surprised as you are… I exercised 5 days of the last week.  Three I can usually accommodate, and those usually at the gym. But last week I was struck by a completely random thought that sounded rather a lot like “I feel like going for a run”.

I know, I’m as surprised as you are.  Me. Running. I who had never made the connection in my head that people who do it actually like it.  It isn’t just a means to a ‘smaller’ end.

So, I went with the thought, and as is often the case, tweeted it.

and again… when the urge struck a 2nd time…

I had a whole HOST of reasons in my head why I shouldn’t/couldn’t do it… things like

1. You’re too heavy, think of the damage to your knees
2. It will hurt.
3. You won’t like it.
4. You do enough exercise anyway.
5. You’ll look like an idiot.

So it would appear to me that this business of expending more energy has put me in a state of having more energy to burn, to the point I actually can talk my way through the bullshit above – and so, after a day welded to a chair at the office looking at a screen, coming home and just laxing out on the sofa doesn’t sit well [see what I did there??].

This running thing is part of a change in my routine in that I now exercise on the way home from work, or as soon as I get home from work. Until now, I had got out of the house and exercised before the day really started.  Turning that on its head has been surprisingly great. I’m even working out harder at the gym that I do in my half awake state – and I’m spending less money getting coffee on the way home from the gym.

Now I just have to make peace with the fact that at my gym visit on the way home from the office on Wednesday will actually incorporate Zumba with my Curves workout.

The gods laughter at my expense is now complete.

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).