Something New

I'm trying something a little bit new in my constant lifelong fight against fatness. I'm quite sure that this is something that I will be fighting against my whole life. I've been blessed with a slowish metabolism and I've also been blessed with a love for food. These things combine to make for a very large "me" unless I really work against these two things.

A while back, I posted something about skipping breakfast and how that's a way that I combat being fat. That's probably the reason that between mid-November and the end of December, I actually lost two pounds. For the first Christmas season that I remember, I didn't gain a few pounds.

That still doesn't change the fact that, in medical terms, I'm obese. I'm not overweight. I'm obese.

I've tried a couple of fad diets. They worked for me temporarily. The best thing I ever did was when I decided to ride my first century ride a few years ago. I dropped a lot of weight that summer, ending up under 200 lbs for the first time in many, many years. Yet, over the last few years, I've slowly gained it all back.

It didn't help that the one sport I really really enjoyed has been taken away from me. I loved racquetball. It's not going to ever be an option for me again. It didn't help that for a whole year, I couldn't ride a real bike because I didn't have the strength in my right hand to brake. It didn't help that even when I had the tendon problem in my elbow fixed, I didn't get back on my bike again.

Yet those are all just excuses.

So this week, I started an exercise that has been eye opening. I downloaded the "LiveStrong" app for my iPad and I started tracking my caloric input/output.

I'm sure that there are more accurate methods, but for $2.99 plus tax, this has a lot of bang for the buck.

I put in my height and weight and some other information (such as my activity level--sedentary. I'm a computer programmer, after all) and told the app that I wanted to lose 2 lbs a week and the app told me that I can consume 1702 calories per day.

It's actually not so bad, especially since I skip breakfast anyway. On days that I actually do something more physical--such as ride the spinner--I can eat more, because the 1702 calories are "net" calories--the difference between what I eat and what I burn. 45 minutes sweating away on the spinner can buy my a few hundred more calories.

The app also has a pretty large database of foods. It's not 100% accurate, I'm sure, but it's a lot better than not knowing at all how many calories I'm eating. I plan out what I'm going to eat for the day and I use the app to figure out approximately what I eat in a day.

It's been eye opening. Geez. No wonder I'm fat.

So I started this on Tuesday. I don't know how long I'll continue to actually log every single thing I eat, but I think it will be something that I can come back to if I can't figure out why I keep getting heavier and heavier. I think that when I hit a point where I want to just maintain my weight, I'll count calories for a while to figure out how much I can continue to eat.

So far so good. I'm down about 2 1/2 pounds. I know it's probably not all REAL weight loss, but at least part of it is.

I'm also planning on riding my bike this summer. A lot. I'm going to do multiple century rides and I'm going to do the cycling merit badge with the scouts in my area.

I'm hopeful that I'll be able to drop 30 or 40 lbs this year and this will be one more tool that I'll have to keep from gaining it all back. Again.

Wish me luck. I'll post updates here from time to time.