Diet by App – April 30

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Mike Shortall

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.

Murder at Citizens Bank Park

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Mike Shortall

The Phillies are killing me! They’re killing a lot of things lately … except of course opposing pitchers.

It’s bad enough the Philadelphia Phillies on most nights look like they couldn’t hit their way out of a wet paper bag. The pain I feel when they make the call to the bullpen at Citizens Bank Park and Chad Durbin answers the phone is becoming unbearable. My angst when men are in scoring position with Ben Revere in the on-deck circle brings on fits of nausea.

I’m might still be a long way from giving up on this season. But the early going has been difficult and frustrating. And yet all of this early season negativity would be manageable if the Phillies would just do one thing for me …

Stop killing The Schmitter!!

What little joy I get from sitting in the freezing cold; watching the Phillies bats make #5 starting pitchers look like Cy Young Award candidates are those two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame …

Oops … Wrong sandwich …

Yes, yes, yes … I get it! At 800+ calories, The Schmitter is only a step away from shooting up an IV bag of pure cholesterol! Any Nanny State Mayor – a la Mr. Nutter or NYC’s Michael Bloomberg – would be tempted to forego their campaigns to outlaw oversized soft drinks if they had a shot of putting a sandwich like The Schmitter out of business.

Perhaps in a fit of civic service, The Phillies have decided to do their dirty work for them.

The McNally’s Tavern creation of steak, fried salami, cheese, onions, tomato and special sauce (There’s ALWAYS special sauce!) stuffed into a kaiser roll is your typical ballpark bacchanal. Yep … 800+ calories posing as The Key to Good Living. It will just be a few less years of living it.

But I’m OK with that, because to me it’s Comfort Food!

Most importantly Comfort Food is crucial when very little of what’s going on in between the white lines on the field is making anyone feel comfortable! I indulge but a few times a year, knowing a steady diet of such bacchanalia is not a recipe for long life.

Went to our first game in our plan last Saturday night (April 20). It was cold. Cliff Lee couldn’t find the plate without hitting a Cardinals’ bat. The Phillies -on the other hand – left their bats in the clubhouse. The spousal unit was cocooned in a Phillies snuggie; and just looking for a reason to bail out for the warmth of the car ride home.

At least my beers weren’t going warm!

When I walk into the Citizens Bank Park, I walk right past the new Schmitter concession and almost threw an aneurism when I saw what had replaced the McNally’s concession beneath the left field escalator. Donuts and fried chicken?!?

When I found out The Schmitter had simply been moved to another concession, a weight the size of Cole Hamels‘ ERA was lifted from my chest!

So after three rather cold and disheartening innings I decide … It’s time! I wander over to see The Schmitter’s new locale and grab a little in-game meal.

My introduction to The Mistake by the Gate!

First off, that smoky flavor that lingers in the air like a wet ashtray is … well … a wet ashtray. The concession gods actually placed one of the best ballpark food concessions right next to the Corral of the Damned! The place where lungs go to die, whether you’re intentionally inhaling or just standing nearby trying to get your Schmitter fix.

Nice move, Phils. I guess an EPA Superfund site wasn’t available?!?

And it gets worse … The new locale appears to lack the work space and productive capacity needed for the Supply Side to meet the Demand Side of the Happiness Equation!

The line was long. It moved way too slowly, especially when the process and its participants seemed disjointed and barely interested. The counter movements were so slow, by the time you were lucky enough to have that $9 sandwich handed over, it was barely warm enough to register as cooked food.

I know by now – after 57 years – that all things change, whether you want them to or not, with no regard for how said change will affect you. Yet you would think ONE THING that by most non-medical measures was good – if not good for you – would remain as reliable as Chase Utley on the base paths.

OK … Bad comparison …

Those damn chicken-stuffed donuts better be good!

Diet by App – April 10

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Mike Shortall

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!

Killing Kennedy

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Mike Shortall

It has become cultural cliché that everyone – old enough to be aware that day – remembers where they were when they heard JFK had been shot … or when the planes hit the World Trade Center … or 70 years ago when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Yet by whatever definition we now describe such memories does not change the fact that they indeed will last a lifetime. And as in the events described above, they will also transcend generational experience.

Friday, November 22, 1963 was a pleasant day for the week before Thanksgiving. I was a first-grade student at the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic elementary school located on Chelten Avenue in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.

It was close to lunch when the quiet of the classroom was broken by the unexpected squawk of the intercom system. At first just a confusing message to this 7-year-old, “Please say a prayer, the President has been shot!” Initially all of us were puzzled, but the one image that was seared into my memory was the look of horror on Sister Anne’s normally placid face.

Minutes later came the words I remember so clearly, as though it was only yesterday, “The President is dead.”

A sign of those times in a Romans Catholic family, though not exactly what hung in our home.

What I remember most from then, particularly those days after the assassination was the reaction of my parents. As Irish Catholics, the Kennedy election and inauguration held a special sense of pride for them. In our house one wall contained two pictures, one of John F. Kennedy, the other Pope John XXIII … side by side. The days after November 22 were filled with an almost non-stop vigil in front of the television, where we first witnessed some of the images that accompany our never-fading memories of those emotional days.

Recently I came across Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot (Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard) in an unexpected place – my 23-year-old son’s bedroom. It was a bit surprising given the way many historical events get lost within our natural focus on more current events. But Brian has always been a bit of a book-worm, and was never very parochial about his reading choices.

And in his room I also found a Steven King fiction, 11/22/63, that revolves around the Kennedy assassination. Of course I immediately confiscated it; and added it to my reading list as well.

Apparently, the Kennedy assassination had indeed transcended Brian’s generational experience and interests.

Lee Harvey Oswald

This is certainly not the first book on the Kennedy tragedy I have picked up. My first in-depth look into that day in Dallas was Josiah Thompson‘s conspiracy piece Six Seconds in Dallas, a book that sowed all sorts of doubts in my young mind on the official version of the assassination as set forth in the Warren Commission Report.

O’Reilly and Dugard do a credible job of identifying those organizations and criminal elements long considered as potential conspiracists in the Kennedy assassination. Yet they do an even better job of describing Lee Harvey Oswald as a dejected reject of both the Soviets and Cubans, a man who always believed he was deemed for “greatness” despite doing little to achieve even a passing notoriety.

Even his relationship his wife, Marina, an increasingly disenchanted spouse, shows a man who had a very difficult time living up to even pedestrian expectations. Oswald was the loser lone gunman that has become the all too familiar figure in many objectified killings, be they the assassination of key public figures or the serial killing of more common citizens.

One of the well-developed themes of Killing Kennedy is the ability to look back through the perspective of time and pull an entire picture together. The book looks back at the figures and events that led up to that bloody day in Dallas. But it is even more interesting to relive those legends that surrounded the troubling facade of the Kennedy Camelot.

Most Americans from that era are familiar with JFK’s propensity for extra-marital relationships. Chapter 5 of Killing Kennedy deals openly with Kennedy’s well-known affair with Marilyn Monroe. But how many people dazzled by the Kennedy mystique ever considered the lengths to which his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (and later Onassis) went to enable – if not condone – said dalliances?
Jacqueline Bouvier kennedy

Jackie was known to leave The White House almost every Thursday for weekends away at the family’s Glen Ora estate in Virginia. She was no fool when it came to JFK’s escapades, yet she left him each weekend alone with Dave Powers, who kept a constant stream of young women accessible to the President.

Kennedy actually claimed that he needed sex almost every day to prevent debilitating headaches (the male twist on the headache-sex relationship?). As for Jackie, she eventually took the unusual step for the 1960s and sought frank, explicit sex advice from Dr. Frank Finnerty, a cardiologist and family friend, in an attempt to improve the First Couple’s intimacy and keep The President from wandering.

Another interesting facet of Killing Kennedy is its frank discussion of the Bay of Pigs disaster, that ill-advised, poorly executed attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow the young revolutionary, Fidel Castro. One factor in the military disaster was Kennedy’s own part in forcing the Bay of Pigs plans to its infamous conclusion. Kennedy was particularly hard on the Eisenhower Administration’s for what he described as its soft stance on Communism – and Cuba in particular – in the 1960 election campaign against Vice President Richard Nixon.

After such a showing Kennedy was in no position to forego a plan that had its origins in the Dwight Eisenhower administration despite his obvious misgivings in the lead-up to the invasion. Once it became apparent that the invasion would fail, Kennedy further complicated his mistake by being indecisive and timid; and then abandoning the effort completely, leaving many of the Cuban expatriates spearheading the invasion to die or to suffer years of imprisonment in Castro’s new Cuba.

Amazingly enough it appears that the Soviet-Cuban Missile crisis resulted in Kennedy’s far wiser embargo strategy against Communist Cuba; and it also may have saved the Kennedy marriage. Many within the Kennedy inner circle, even the men on the Secret Service detail, saw a marked change in JFK’s womanizing after the Soviets almost forced a nuclear showdown over placing offensive, nuclear-capable missiles on the island just 90 miles from Florida. As a result of that nuclear near-miss, the President appeared to become a much more family oriented and accessible husband and father.

It is not difficult to appreciate JFK’s actions to end racial discrimination in the South. Although his
Martin Luther King, Jr and LBJ at a meeting in the Kennedy White House

civil rights efforts really found their impetus in Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, the actions – and reactions – taken in the early stages of the 1960s would continue as a central theme of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and culminate in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

As I read Killing Kennedy much attention was being given to the 50-year anniversary of the Birmingham campaign to protest racial discrimination . It’s sobering to consider that just 50 years ago African-Americans – some as young as elementary school students – were motivated to expose themselves to physical violence at the hands of white law enforcement authorities to press their case for equal treatment under the law in the racially hostile South. The author’s description of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade is provocative.

Other facts I found interesting and enlightening in Killing Kennedy:

Jack Kennedy was hardly the decisive Navy PT boat Commander immediately after PT-109 was cleaved in half by a Japanese warship in the South Pacific. Initially Kennedy is hesitant to make command decisions, instead polling his crew as to the best course of action. But he certainly made up for his timidness as the episode progressed.
Kennedy was in constant pain over most of his adult life as the result of injuries from the PT-109 incident. To relieve his back pain, Kennedy liked to swim naked in the since removed White House pool. This activity also led to some embarrassing episodes with young female staff members.
During the Bay of Pigs Kennedy was beset with diarrhea and urinary tract infection that severely tested his ability to concentrate.
Jackie Kennedy was a closet chain-smoker, who continued the practice even during pregnancy!
The Kennedy’s despised LBJ; and him them. This is not difficult to understand, given the way the Kennedy brothers brought Johnson onto the 1960 ticket in order to land the Electoral College votes of Texas then eviscerated his political power as Vice President.
Just weeks before his death, Kennedy already has the U.S. heavily involved in the survival of the South Vietnamese government.
JFK greatly embarrassed Frank Sinatra when he cancelled long-made plans to stay at Sinatra’s Palm Springs home following a speech at UC-Berkeley in 1962. This after Sinatra had already gone to the trouble of making significant changes to his property, even adding a helipad. Instead Kennedy stayed at Bing Crosby‘s estate, purportedly bedding Marilyn Monroe for the first time there, because of Sinatra’s alleged relationship with La Cosa Nostra. Sinatra, irate when Peter Lawford – a Kennedy by marriage – was forced to break the news, eventually became a Republican.

Regardless of whether you come from my generation, an earlier one, or a generation much younger and far removed from the shock of an assassinated President, you will enjoy the historical perspective provided by Killing Kennedy!

Diet by App – March 26

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Mike Shortall

What have I lost so far? What the ...?!?

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!

Diet by App – March 19

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Mike Shortall

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!

Diet by App (March 11)

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Mike Shortall

What have I lost so far? Appropriate given today's lesson!

Our “What have I lost?” picture is appropriate for the failures cited in this post!

This is the 200th post to appear on Cranky Man’s Lawn! Thanks for reading! – Mike

A disappointing week …

Dropped only 0.6 lb., getting down to an even 232 from 232.6 on March 4. Although this is a disappointment, at least I know it’s not the “Lose It!” app that failed. No, it was the definitely The App-ee!

I am playing a bit too coy and calculating with my calorie limit; thinking at times that I have “all these unused calories” to burn through, so why not enjoy a temptation or two. As a result, I end up pushing up to the edge of the calorie limit, then beyond it in my over-exuberance to enjoy my over-abundance of under-utilized venial sin demerits.

(A word about our “What have I lost?” picture of the week … I was surprised to find out, what used to be a 5 lb bag of sugar has lost 20% of its weight! When did this happen? And did the PRICE come down 20% too?!?

Yes, I’m being facetious!)

As a result, this past week showed me 350 calories over my calorie limit (1999 cal) for the week, where I had been between 150-800 calories under budget my previous 3 weeks. The worst part is being over budget on 5 of the 7 days!

Not good …

Part of the trap here, I think, is the mind game you play when you rely on the exercise credits Lose it! allows. You start bargaining with yourself.

“Hey, we’re 600 calories under for the week …”

“PARTY!!”

No, the “bargaining” didn’t take long at all.

An ostrich egg (right) also weighs in at about 4 lbs.

An ostrich egg (right) also weighs about 4 lbs.

This is still an education for me. Even in failure you should learn something about yourself or about whatever it is you seek.

I’m still learning.

So, I will endeavor to maximize my under-budget calories whenever possible, even if it means eating fruit, nuts, and tree bark instead of the my usual guilty pleasures. And now that the weather is turning for the better, get some exercise on days when I don’t hit the gym.

Here’s hoping for greater strength and a bit more progress!

Diet by App, February 22

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Mike Shortall

What have you lost for me lately? a Malayan Flying Fox!

What have you lost for me lately? … 2.5 lb. Malayan Flying Fox

First weigh-in since buying the Lose It! app. Down 2 pounds to 234 (Start weight: 236). Probably closer to 2.5 pounds had I entered my starting weight properly (236.4). About what I expected, in view of my learning curves.

One trick learned is the ability to push over-budget calories into the next day. Some might say this is “cheating”; but it helps me handle the ups and downs easier. First, it relieves some of the guilt and dietary pressure when you wander (i.e. bull-rush the feeding trough) off course. Second, you get the chance to make good on your wandering without forfeiting whatever progress you have already made.

This week the program was complicated a bit further when I chalked up another year on this Big Blue Marble. So sorry, Ms. Lose It! … Chocolate-frosted, yellow birthday cake trumps Diet App every time …

… along with the Imperial Wolf Fish dinner at Bonefish Grill, accompanied by several adult beverages forced upon me by several non-diet-conforming family members. (Which is why I love them!).

Also found that by pushing some of those over-budget birthday calories into the next day, ….

a) didn’t feel like committing seppuku the day after my birthday splurge;

b) could manage my “wild” birthday craziness by a little budget-cutting sacrifice the following day; and

c) still end up 322 calories UNDER budget for the week!

Tasted better than he looks

Solved the problem of accurately entering (to the best if one’s ability and time) the nutritional and caloric data from home-cooked meals and restaurant dining. By googling a meal, like my Imperial Wolf Fish dinner (450 with the au gratin potatoes), you can usually find a comparable meal described and valued for entry in the Lose It! app.

Don’t obsess over being down-to-the-calorie completely accurate. Close enough is good enough. Found several menu/nutrition websites that listed my Bonefish Grill meal. It wasn’t an exact match, if looking at a picture might indicate, but close enough for government work (favorite adage).

So far, so good …

Diet by App

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Mike Shortall

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!

Once loyalty withers …

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Mike Shortall

(The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names of the guilty have been changed.)

Philadelphia sport fans are generally religious when it comes to their teams. They will wear their emotions and allegiances proudly on their sleeve and wallow for weeks when hopes for a championship dissolve into disappointment.

They also travel well, whether that means staying loyal to their hometown teams when forced to relocate to other regions of the country or the simple prospect of traveling to other sports cities to support the Philly teams on the road. If you happened to watch any of the Philadelphia Flyers games this past weekend, you no doubt noticed the numbers of Philly faithful – both winter snowbirds and permanent transplants – taking the opportunity to see the hometown boys taking on the local Florida competition.

Of course, such is not always the case. And from time-to-time, former Philadelphia sports fans fall for the allure of a local team or the no muss, no fuss ease of jumping on the nearest bandwagon.

Sometimes you can see The Leap coming for months …

Thus, there was no real surprise recently when several familiar faces, long-time Philly residents who had relocated to points South, appeared on Facebook wearing the colors and whooping it up for the NFL successes of the local football team, the Baltimore Ravens.

Bennie A, renown for picking the British as his “AFC homeland”!

To protect their identity, we will simply refer to them here as Benedict and Arnold.

You could sense a change in the familiar sports attitudes emanating from a mid-sized metropolitan area in Maryland a few years ago, when idle chitchat during a family gathering took a turn towards the off-season prospects of the Purple and Gold. No big deal at the time, as Benedict’s brother – also once a Philly sports fan – had morphed into a Ravens fan after years of Maryland living.

We took note when the aforementioned Bennie received a brand new Ravens jersey as a gift recently, the name Suggs prominently stitched on the back. And as chance might have it, Bene’s brother has a well-appointed Baltimore Ravens man-cave in his home just a few doors down from Bennie and Arnie’s version of West Point (historical point of reference; see Arnold, Benedict).

You could almost HEAR the colors changing!

So of course, a week or so ago we were treated to assorted Facebook posts showing the midst of their Raven-esque AFC Championship game festivities and the hullabaloo the resulted when the Baltimore team won and landed a berth in the Superbowl.

Not being able to remain silent any longer, I challenged Arnold on where their loyalties lie. The Answer?

“They are our ‘AFC team’!”

uh huh …

Now, I try not to be cynical.

(OK … I don’t try very hard; but I try a little.)

So immediately, I imagine all sorts of possible scenarios that play into my somewhat difficult-to-resist cynicism.

Majestic Eagle …??

Would this phenomena occur in The Natural World, if say the ravens, notorious scavengers, unable to actively hunt to sustain themselves, were 4-12 in road-kill contests; but the eagles, proud and superior hunters, were 11-5 in superbly executed trout fishing attempts? Would fans of The Natural World be tempted into dumping the majestic eagles for road-killed squirrel-eating ravens, if success continued to favor the predator that serves as the National Emblem?

(Pardon me, I mean would they be inclined to supplement their loyalty with the raven as their designated “carrion-eating bird”?)

Back in the Sports World, I imagine I have missed many an opportunity over the years to adopt my own “AFC team”; thereby feeling free to enjoy the success and championship seasons of the cross-state Pittsburgh Steelers. After all, I could find no guidance on geographical limits to bandwagon jumping!

What if Bennie and Arnie decided they needed an additional American League baseball team? Actually , I’m surprised that hasn’t happened yet, since the Baltimore Orioles are just as geographically convenient, and they enjoyed a 14-games-over-.500 playoff season in 2012!

…. or this sorry excuse for a bird?

I just HOPE they aren’t holding out for another season before deciding they need an alternate NL East team, since the Nationals must look mighty tempting to anyone tired of waiting for the Phillies’ to work through their current rough stretch!

That would be the real dagger in the back of Philadelphia Sports Loyalty to which Bennie and Arnie still profess to cling. But once The Seal is broken, all kinds of contamination is possible!

They could insist on having another NHL team (Washington Capitals) or another NFC East team (Redskins)!

But of course, the BIG QUESTION is this …

What happens when their original home town Philadelphia Eagles and their “AFC team”, Baltimore Ravens face-off? That might be a sticky enough situation during the regular season, with that Ravens man-cave right down the street and all those Ravens lovers in such close proximity. But even worse …

What would happen if the Eagles and Ravens faced off in a Superbowl somewhere down the road?!? My doubts fester to a boil as I consider the possibilities.

I envision scenes of frequent bathroom visits to switch between the colors of one team or the other based on the state of the scoreboard!

Then it hit me!

The Answer to their conflicting emotions in such a situation … and a nice little niche market to be exploited by some enterprising merchandiser. Reversible football jerseys!

A jersey that would show the colors and emblems of one team that could be easily turned inside-out at the drop of a hat – or a change in the scoreboard – to show the colors and emblems of another!

And we will call them … Front Runners!