The continuing saga of Better Living through the Lose It! iPhone app.

What have I lost?
Four-month old black bear cub weighs 12 pounds.

Starting weight:  236 (Feb 18)

Goal Weight:  200

Plan:  Lose one-and-a-half pounds a week

Daily Calorie Budget:  1940 per day  (Started at 2020/day)

Goal Achievement:  August 3 19 24 Sept 5

Weight on April 10:  225.0

Weight today:  224.0

Another two weeks, another pound …

My only complaint so far about the Lose It! app is it’s overly optimistic calorie budgeting.  According to my original plan creation, I should be losing 1 1/2 pounds a week.  As I have been very faithful in my inputs – both food intake and caloric output – throughout the process, I can only assume metabolism is the variable.

I’m no saint, and might fall off the wagon once or twice a week; but not to the extent - calorie wise – that would limit my weight lose to 1/2 pound a week.  Usually these bouts of non-compliance have more to do with events and social occasions.  I might partake of added calories, but I generally keep it relatively healthy.

Even my night-time snacking has improved immensely.  And though it hasn’t disappeared completely, I have been able to limit it considerably and dutifully account for those calories in an effort to keep myself honest.

Pretty certain there’s a metabolic connection to the differences between the Plan and the Result.  Lose It! is after all a fairly simple calorie counting program.  There is no attempt to account for anything other than the straight caloric inputs and outputs one experiences during the day.

I’m pretty sure there has to be a difference between how a 50+ male and a 25 year-old male burn off calories or metabolize their food intake.  There are weeks where I feel as though I have burned a lot more calories than my progress demonstrates.

Yet I guess I can’t complain because I’m still losing.  It’s just taking longer than I expect.

If you take a look at the data presented at the beginning of each post, you can see where the goal achievement date has been pushed from early August into early September now.  This is automatically recalculated by Lose It! each weigh-in based on your progress-to-date.

I’m simply in for a longer haul than I had hoped.  But maybe this way the changes in behavior will last a lifetime.

What have I lost lately?
an African Penguin weighs 11 lbs.

The continuing saga of Better living through the Lose It! iPhone app.

Starting weight:  236 (Feb 18)

Goal Weight:  200

Plan:  Lose one-and-a-half pounds a week

Daily Calorie Budget:  1940 (Started at 2020/day)

Goal Achievement:  August 3 19 24

Weight on April 10:  228.0

Weight today:  225.0

.

Have come to the realization this project is simply going to progress in fits and starts, often with absolutely no inkling which way I’m “progressing”.  There are times when I can feel I am making progress (or lack thereof) as confirmed by that flat little Judge Numeric, who hides rodent-like under the sink in the bathroom.

Have also learned that how I feel is not a reliable indicator of said progress (or lack thereof).  On some days – like today – when I expected the Scale Judge to weigh-in disapprovingly on my latest efforts, I am pleasantly surprised.  Judge Numeric and my self-conscience, Judge O’Self are smiling most approvingly at my lower Earth density value (down 3 lbs since April 10).

The white-fronted marmoset not only weighs 11 pounds, that face looks eerily familiar.

My best guess is the awakening Spring – particularly the yard work that begs of me – has much to do with my slightly tighter belt cinch.

No shocker to anyone, who regularly visits, that I am just a tad OCD about how the outside of the house looks, particularly that lush green magic carpet ride of which I sometimes write of here.  My anality over grassidity is a nagging impetus that requires quick attention … like so many other naggings in my life.  Though it’s really just a stimulant – as is a warming sun and the smells of Spring – to get into motion and throw off the cobwebs of Winter.

And it gets me out of the house.

Besides I had a list of lawn projects and treatments and cleanup and general landscape …

Yes, Virginia, it can ALWAYS look better!

But enough about that in other posts.

What have I lost so far? Two–week old lion cubs weigh about 8 pounds!

Starting weight:  236 (Feb 18)

Goal Weight:  200

Plan:  Lose one-and-a-half pounds a week

Daily Calorie Budget:  1969 (Down from 2,020 at the start)

Goal Achievement:  August 3 19

Weight on March 19:  229.4

Weight today:  228.0

Confession time … again …

I skipped one week of my extremely popular Diet by App updates so as not to expose my vast audience to another episode of Creepy Coconut Crab.  In short, it hasn’t been a real good dieting period.

Truth is, on Good Friday I stood at 227 pounds, down 9 for The Diet.  Then Easter weekend hit.  The boys – all three of them – were home, along with Michael’s charming wife, Janelle.  It’s a certifiable Life Event when we can get everyone in one place at the same time!

Sockeye salmon (foreground) also weighs in at 8 pounds of good eating!

So take that Life Event and add in Carol’s penchant for making sure EVERYONE enjoys a momentous Easter sugar rush, including those on a diet, and violà!  Diet disaster …

It’s the Peeps!  They made me do it!

So now it’s two weeks later, and I’m trying to get back to where I was.  Not sure why it’s taken this long, considering I have been significantly under calorie budget for the two weeks since; but it has.

I suspect I’m still playing too loose with my calorie budget; and definitely eating the wrong things … still … in the evening hours.  I’m trying to change – or at least moderate – my snacking habit.  Every time I’m disappointed in my lack of progress, I am at least re-evaluating what I am doing and trying to change what I’m doing poorly.

The good news is … The Coconut Crab is history!

What have I lost so far?
The creepy, gigantic Coconut Crab – minus trash can – weighs 6.6.lbs.!

Starting weight:  236 (Feb 18)

Goal Weight:  200

Plan:  Lose one-and-a-half pounds a week

Daily Calorie Budget:  1969 (Down from 2,020 at the start)

Goal Achievement:  August 3, 2013

Weight on March 19:  229.4

Weight today:  229.6

I’m stuck on Coconut Crab!  Damn you, Lose It!

This can be frustrating.  Now I’ll admit, I was a tad over-budget this week on calories. But in the overall scheme of things being only 120 calories over a weekly budget of 13,790 calories is barely “over budget”.

Isn’t it?

This diet thing is a bit perplexing.  Truth be told though, it didn’t feel like a good week.  But then again, neither did last week, when the Tale of the App showed a 3+ pound loss.  And that week I was 270 calories over budget!

I don’t get it.  I’m not surprised.  I just don’t get it.  Maybe it’s a cumulative penalty-type thing.

Or …

Perhaps it was that Friday afternoon Happy Hour, downing three Stella Artois (150 cal. per) and a bit of lunch (actually a sizeable roast pork sandwich) at the new Horsham Pub while catching the Temple University victory over NC State in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.  Who knows?  But you wouldn’t think that would be a huge culprit when you were still so close to budget.

Then again, I knew I had to exercise a bit more the rest of the weekend to work that off.  Maybe it’s not really all that hard to figure out.

Fact is, I still have a few bad habits I’m working through.  These I know, if I can control, will make a difference … or should.

So here’s to another week looking to vanquish that ugly Coconut Crab!

What have I lost so far?
The creepy, gigantic Coconut Crab – minus trash can – weighs 6.6.lbs.!

Starting weight:  236 (Feb 18)

Goal Weight:  200

Plan:  Lose one-and-a-half pounds a week

Daily Calorie Budget:  1969 (Down from 2,020 at the start)

Goal Achievement:  August 3, 2013

Weight on March 11:  232.6

Weight today:  229.4

Two things popped into my head today while preparing this post.

The most obvious one was “What the fff … funnelcake is that creature?!?”, that resulted from my weekly Google image search to illustrate the weight I have shed (or haven’t).

That hideous looking Creature of God is the Coconut Crab, found in regions across the Indian Ocean and western Pacific where the much prettier coconut palm is indigenous .

Sorry, but that thing IS hideous; and I’m thrilled that I have shed it’s very creeping-me-out-now weight.

But the first thing that popped into my mind occurred this morning when I stepped on the scale and was shock at the number.  At that moment it became quite clear to me that I really do not have a clue how this diet thing works.

I actually put the weekly weigh-in off a day because I was certain that the news was not going to be good, or at least it was going to be roughly similar to last week’s measure, dropping only 0.6 lb.  When I saw that I had in fact lost 3.2 lbs. in ONE WEEK, I was flummoxed.

And so, for the first time in a while I am under the 230 mark!

This was not supposed to be a good week, even if I was 270+ calories UNDER budget for the week.  But that had been possible only after a sustained effort – over the weekend no less – to get back on program..

It certainly didn’t FEEL like a good week!  Thursday I over-indulged in the celebration of my son’s birthday – at Bonefish Grill … again.  Only this time we benefitted from a bad performance in the BFG kitchen; and we waited an extended period of time for our main entrees.

Normally, this would be a story about a crappy restaurant experience.  But that has not been the case at the Willow Grove version of the Bonefish Grill.  Unfortunately, my dieting effort would suffer a HUGE setback as the result of this Bone Fish error.

The management at this BFG always seems to be on top of the guest experience.  Almost as soon as we started wondering what had happened to our main course, the manager was at our table explaining the problem and ensuring a favorable outcome.  We only waited another 10 minutes for our food; yet in that short amount of time our manager had informed us that we would be comped our appetizers (Bang Bang Shrimp x2) and – dagger to the back of The Diet App – free deserts!

As a friend of mine is quite fond of saying, “If it’s free; it’s for me!”

“Lose It!” was not happy in the least.  Maybe it was my frantic touch-screen manipulations as I tried to determine which desert offering would do the LEAST amount of damage to the diet program.  Or it could have been what I eventually selected … the dreaded Chocolate Creme Brulee!

But if you listened closely, you could almost hear my diet app sighing.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the following day my wife of 27 years left me …

.

… for a cruise through the Caribbean!

Anxious and depressed, I celebr consoled myself in a guilt-filled bout of inappropriate snacking and mindless TV watching.  I was able to shake off the yearning and loneliness on Saturday and Sunday; getting some much-needed things done; and even squeezing in a bit of exercise in 40° wind chills between bouts of sleet and snow showers on Sunday.

That’s probably the biggest benefit of a diet app like “Lose It!”.  It gives you the opportunity to make up for short-sighted decisions by illustrating the damage done and then assisting you in determining what needs to done to get yourself back on track!

In any case, the results for the week just passed were simply surprising!

After years and years of fighting the urgings of friends and family, I have finally stopped resisting The Forces of Nature (Electronic) and sheepishly joined The Legions of The Empire.

Yes, I got an iPhone for Christmas!

So now I am finally plugged into to an even more convenient  electronic umbilical, whose benefits in the past I have steadfastly questioned as unnecessary, more costly, and therefore unwelcomed.  My old flip phone now lies as silent and as dormant as a February lawn.

My days of wondering how the outside world survived without my uninterrupted electronic availability are as far off as the hair of my long ago youth.  I feel as I imagine Neo would, had he decided to swallow the Blue Pill instead of the Red.  All I’m missing is a set of quick-connect cable ports.

Yet I have to admit, there are a lot of neat features to owning my Portal to The Matrix.  There is indeed an App for Everything!  Some are silly and superfluous, if silly and superfluous resides in the eye of the beholder.  Some are fun to have, as I have fallen for a few of its games and gimmicks.  And some appear of significant benefit!

Most recently, I have become smitten with a weight loss app, appropriately named Lose It!

Over the years I have tried any number of diets in one form or another.  The Atkins/South Beach/We-Hate-Carbs, the LowCalorie/LowSugar/LowTaste, the JennyCraig/SlimFast/LeanCuisine …

They all worked for a while, and then they didn’t for one reason or another.  Usually because I just lost interest and motivation.  One factor in my inability to commit to a lesser me was the gut feeling that I didn’t know what I was doing; had no EASY way to figure out how I was doing; and had no interest in PAYING someone to lead me through it.

(EASY being an obvious requirement when I find eating much less aggravating than trying to figure out whether WHAT I was eating was actually helping or hurting.  Having to lose weight is annoying enough, even when you KNOW your health would improve; but having to WORK at it was … Well, it’s just plain annoying times two!)

Now before you get to thinking this is a Lose It testimonial; I have only been plugged into this app for about week.  So Success is a long, long way off.  But since I sometimes have difficulty coming up with brilliant insights and marvelous story-telling with which to fill these pages; I thought I would invite you all to follow my journey to a Lesser Mike.

It MIGHT be fun.  It could – like so many of my other dieting attempts - end up being a colossal failure.  If Vegas had a line on this little venture, I’d bet the Under (achievement).  If nothing else, it will be informative and – most likely – whiny, petulant and full of self-pity/loathing/flagellation.

From time-to-time I will let you in on how I’m doing; what I’m doing; and what the results look like.

For what more could anyone ask?!?

Here’s the point from where I started roughly a week ago as it appears in my Lose It! profile:

Starting weight:  236

Goal Weight:  200

Plan:  Lose one-and-a-half pounds a week

Daily Calorie Budget:  2,020

Goal Achievement:  August 3, 2013

Other considerations:  I get to the gym at work at least 3 times a week, concentrating on cardio/calorie burning through elliptical and treadmill machines and throwing in core exercises (for golf and lower back) or light weight work.  This usually allows me to burn somewhere between 250-350 calories a day.

So, what’s to like about the Lose It! app?

The app is oriented towards caloric intake, with goals broken down by Day and by Week; so if you have a Bad Food Day you can see immediately what it does to your program.  Intermittent stumbling is inevitable, especially when you combine Me with Diet!  So if you have a very bad Diet Day, you can adjust your next day(s) activities and food intakes to get your noncompliant self back on track.

Some of Lose Its features include:

• a wealth of nutritional information on a broad range of foods and food products
• a bar-code reader for purchased ingredients and packaged food products that makes inputting caloric data easier than attempting to divine said data from your 10th grade class on nutrition
• feature that allows you to create and save meals and their nutritional and caloric values for repeated meals
• an easy-to-complete profile that allows the dieter to enter baseline data and goals expressed as pounds lost by week
• a graph that provides a visual picture of weight progress (dieter input of weight)
• daily log of foods eaten and a rolling total of daily calorie intake
• daily calorie budget, along with front-page display of how your budget stands for that day and week
• more graphs on nutritional breakdown and weekly calorie budget
• a Friends connection for group motivation

The app will store those foods and meals you select in a menu similar to your iPhone Contacts format for easy repeat usage.  (I found it relatively easy to gather information on first-time meals not included in the Lose It! app by simply “Google-ing” the basic content of the meal, and looking for a nutritional website containing the necessary data.  Once you build and enter the data, the app will store it for later use if needed.)

The feature I love most is the ability to calculate and value the calories burned through exercise, work, and simple everyday activities.  The list of activities is about as all-inclusive as possible.  You can find a broad range of workout activities and get calorie credit for such activities as gardening, golf, lawn mowing (a favorite of Cranky Man’s Lawn … duh), house cleaning, snow shoveling and … ahem … sexual activity!

Many of the activity choices allow you describe the level of vigor with which you pursue said activity, with accompanying levels of calorie credit.

In the end, I’m sure this – like any other weight-loss program – depends on the will and loyalty of the dieter.  But from my point-of-view, Lose It! takes a lot of the guesswork out of monitoring caloric intake and effort output that many health professionals recommend as the way to shed excess cargo.

I just like that it makes it easier for those of us who disdain uncertainty and the constant research required to achieve that sense of knowing what one is doing.

Here’s hoping I found something that will work with me as well as for me!