I’ve been thinking that it would be a good idea to restart this blogging thing.

How many times have you heard that from someone who’s blog has gone dormant? Writing is a difficult, albeit useful and sometimes cathartic practice to maintain. It’s a habit that like any exercise has lasting benefits, but it’s a hard habit to develop. But the turn of a new year often creates the opportunity to reflect on years gone by and plan for the year ahead; a time to begin to develop new muscle memories.

Several months ago I begun a trek on the path to weight loss. Not jumping on the latest diet fad, I decided to make small but maintainable changes to my daily habits that would result in a drop in the bulk I’ve accumulated over the past 25 years. Several things led to this, one of which was something my doctor had told me.

What if I asked you to carry around a fifty pound bag of rocks for a week. You’d respond by saying “man, you’re crazy.” But that’s exactly what you’ve been doing for years.

For some reason, that made a profound amount of sense, even though it’s a “duh” kind of statement. The truth of it is, I’ve been carrying around 2 bags of rocks. For years.

Six months later, I’m down almost 60 pounds, my blood pressure is lower, and my cholesterol is almost normal. The funny thing is it really hasn’t been that hard. Two things have contributed to this. The first is coming to an understanding about what foods are good and what foods are bad and why. Not the radical “all X is bad, don’t eat X ever” (whatever X may be). It really comes down to simple math. Things you eat have a caloric value, and your body burns calories at a certain rate, depending on activity. If the first number is less than the second, you lose weight. A pound is roughly equivalent to 3500 calories. If you eat 500 calories less than you burn a day, you’ll lose a pound in a week. It’s a simple equation, and it’s simple to do on a regular basis. Simple, that is, if you have the second tool which is the ability to track your burn and intake.

I know most people are averse to “calorie counting.” I would be, too, if it wasn’t as easy as it is these days to do the counting. You see, it’s not about reducing your intake quantity-wise, it’s about the intake of the “right” things… simple, easy substitutions allow you to eat plenty and be “satisfied,” yet don’t contribute as much to the calorie intake side of the scale. Couple this with a simple increase in activity and you begin to lose weight.

So, how did I do this? Well it started when I came across a device and website called the Fitbit. Basically, the Fitbit is an advanced pedometer, counting steps and activity level, and automatically, wirelessly syncing this data to their tracking application on their website.

The interesting thing about this is initially the Fitbit was an extremely hard item to come by. I can only imagine, as a fairly new startup, they were having production issues keeping up with demand. I ordered my Fitbit on July 19, 2010, and didn’t receive it until the end of November. But that’s the interesting thing… the use of the tracking tools on their website work without a Fitbit, and cost nothing to use. I used an existing cheap pedometer that I already had, and started using the website to track food, activity (steps), my blood pressure readings, etc. Using this alone, I lost over 40 pounds before I even received my Fitbit.

I should point out here that I’m not particularly advocating Fitbit, although I think it’s a great site and an awesome device (now that I’ve received mine). I even got a Fitbit for my wife, and she’s onboard now as well, although she hasn’t started tracking her food, yet. There are many tools out there, find one (or more) and use them.

The key is understanding that certain foods that I was used to having were just not healthy from a calorie standpoint. That double whopper from Burger King for lunch? 990 calories. Add fries? 500 calories more. A burrito from Freebirds? 1,450 calories. By using the tools on the Fitbit site, I set my weight goal, daily calorie intake goals, and tracked the numbers. It literally takes seconds to enter the data, the hardest part is getting in the habit. But, as research has shown, if you do something consistently for 30 days straight, you’ll turn it into a habit.

So that’s what I did. Weigh each morning before my shower. Take a walk before work. Record my lunch and dinner right after eating. Record my daily steps and take my blood pressure reading right before bed. And the weight started coming off.

With the Fitbit, I no longer have to remember to enter my steps and activity for the day. The device automatically syncs wirelessly whenever I’m near my computer. Very cool. Next, I’ve located a scale from a company called Withings that syncs your weight readings over wi-fi to their website. Fitbit is beta testing an integration with Withings so your weight readings flow directly into your Fitbit profile. Withings is about to release a new blood pressure monitor that hooks up to your iPhone to monitor blood pressure and factor that into the tools, as well. Very cool.

Of course, the main thing is watching the types of food I eat. I haven’t cut out fast food altogether, but I’ve drastically cut back. And there are plenty of “good” options from the normal fast food places you eat. More salads, fruit, protein… less fat, fried food, salt. The point is I get plenty to eat by simply picking the right things and paying a little more attention to the labels. Easy.

I shoot for 1250 calories a day, and a burn of 3000 calories a day. Right now I’m averaging about 1500 calories a day in and 3100 out. The math on that averages to about 3 pounds a week, and the graphs prove that out. I won’t lie, December was hard (more fun food available and the weather not so cooperative for exercise). I have been basically flat from Thanksgiving thru New Years, but I’m back on the downward path now that we’re into January.

I’m at 270.0 pounds today. According to the site, I move from “obese” to “over” weight at 247. I’m shooting for 206, which is when I move into the “normal” range for my height. So, 64 to go.

I didn’t mean to turn this into a weight loss post. The goal is to start writing about things that are going on, allowing me to better sort the details and thoughts out in my own head. Writing about things does that. The next habit I want to make is to do this on a more regular basis.

We’ll see how it goes.

Not sure who he is, but he’s pretty good

I love these!

How original. I do like the walls, though. Wanna bet on how long untill someone posts a picture of them blue-screening?

read more here

Hmmm… who does the media respect?

Geez.