I have been struggling with weight for some time. My daughter and I bought my wife a Wii, (at her behest), 544 days ago. How do I know? The Wii tells me how many days I've been using it when I click on my profile. Since that time I've lost 31 pounds. (Hold the applause, please). It can be one of the most depressing parts of the day when I get on the scale and it shows ANY positive amount. But it does. And it stings. And then I look at the log where I can see all 544 days as little dots across weeks, months, and years...and I see where it started and where it's been and where it is now and the daily gain gets put in perspective. It still hurts but just a little bit less. It actually becomes encouraging to see that there are so many little ups but the overall trend is down.
I think this graphic is a wonderful motivator. I don't use the Wii to exercise only to track the weight.
Another gizmo I recently, (a few months ago), purchased is the Bodybugg. I wear an armband 23 hours a day and it tracks my calories. I think it measures heart rate, sweat, skin resistance, steps and a few other parameters to come up with a calorie estimate. I have a little watch which I can look at any time during the day and see how many calories I've burned since midnight. It is a great motivator when I set my daily goal at 10000 steps and look down at 3 pm and only see 3000. I know I HAVE to get out for a walk.
I download the armband to the website every few days and it gives me a graph of all the measurable parameters. I'm mostly interested in calories burned.
Now here's what prompted me to write. Its the other side of the website, the feature which recently was the subject of a few articles about how to double your weight loss. (I think double.) Its the food logging. Another food logging program. I don't think it's the best but it's good and has a simplified method of creating a food listing that's not in the database.
Here's my difficulty and solution. I cook. A lot. I cook stuff that's not in any database. I made dinner for myself last night. Seitan Sausage, (http://www.everydaydish.tv/index.php?page=recipe&recipe=109), then sauteed with onions, garlic, peppers, pressed tofu, a few bunches of spinach and a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes and then I steamed it a bit by throwing in some soy sauce and broth left over from the earlier batch of seitan I made earlier in the week, (see the pic on the blog), and then put in a few dollops of tomato sauce from the eggplant parm, (vegan), from earlier in the week.
So how do I put down a calorie count for that? It's daunting. So you just have to look up some beef stir fry item and put down a few cups of that, over estimate, keep within your calorie budget, and hope for the best.
I also have a dietary goal. It's a tiny goal. I want to lose one OUNCE every day. If a pound is 16 oz and 3500 calories then my calorie deficit must be only 218 calories every day. Every day. Every single day. I don't stock up for the weekend or going out or when friends come over. Can't do that and expect to have any kind of consistent loss. That to me is a zero sum game and I'm not looking for anything close to zero sum. I work out when I can, almost always when I'm on the road and a few times a week when I'm on call at home or off, or walk across manhattan to pick up my daughter at school on the west side, or something. Remember I'm shooting for 10000 steps a day and 3400 calorie burn and 2800 calories consumed. If you did the math you know I have about 200 calories a day as a buffer in case my calorie consumption is a little off.
So far it's working and I can't really say I miss that 200 calories a day but I can say that I absolutely have to be, and judging from 31 pounds, (496 ozs), in 544 days, it seems to be slowly, consistently working.
My $ .02 and my plan. YMMV.
Marty
Marty's Flying Vegan Review
www.martysnycveggiereview.blogspot.com
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