Weighing in on my Birthday!

Hello Lovelies! Yes, today is my birthday! I won’t tell you how old I am – not because I’m embarrassed – but because the hubby doesn’t like me posting information which might jeopardize our cyber security. Anyhoo, if you really want to know, you can probably figure it out. Hint: I’m told I look younger than my age…probably as a result of the blood pact I entered with Beelzebub.

Today, I promised that I would discuss the diet plan that I’m using to lose weight. It’s an app called MyFitnessPal. And, really, it’s an online (but private) log for your calories and exercises…and it does the calculations for you. You start by entering your weight, your activity level, and how much weight per week you’d like to lose. It then tells you how many calories you are allowed each day. Based upon my weight, and activity level and my desire to lose 1.5 pounds a week. My daily caloric intake is 2,380 calories. And throughout the day, I enter all the food I eat. It has a huge database of foods and their calories, including entries for all major restaurant chains.

The app subtracts the calories of each item from your daily intake goal so that you have a running tally of how many calories you have remaining. What I like about the app is that I don’t feel locked into a specific menu. So, if I have birthday cake for breakfast (I didn’t, by the way), I enter it and the app just subtracts the calories. There’s very little judgment from the app. It doesn’t scold you for your choices. It might “remind” you that it’s high in sugar…but it doesn’t shame you for your choices.

And, if you do some activity which is beyond you normal activity level, you can enter the exercise and the app with credit you with the calories burned during the activity. I used to love getting on the elliptical trainer for 90 minutes burning off hundreds of calories…..because I could eat more!

There are other “bells and whistles.” It breaks down how much protein, carbs and fat you are consuming. So you can check those levels and say “Oh, crap….today I’ve been eating a lot of fat and carbs…maybe I should have something with protein!” It also tracks your nutrients, like vitamins, calcium, sodium, etc. There’s also a bulletin board where members of the app can chat about diets, success stories, etc. There’s plenty more I haven’t mentioned…but it’s FREE!

If you want to know more, there are plenty of tutorials about MyFitnessPal on YouTube.

So how am I doing with the plan?

Well, as you can see from the chart above, I started on July 12 at (GASP!) 243.2 pounds and I weighed in this morning at 233.6…so over 7 weeks, I’ve lost about 10 pounds with an average of 1.37 pounds lost per week. I’m a little short of my goal of 1.5 pounds weight loss per week, but I can tell that I’m retaining some water – based upon how my wedding ring fits on my finger. So, I’m probably on schedule.

I’m a little bummed that my weight went UP by 2 pounds, but my body seems to have a pattern of one poor week followed by one great week….so, we’ll see what happens when I weigh myself again on Friday.

Stay Tuned!!