where my weight and technology meet.

If you're not me, this post might be a bit of a snoozer.


I got an app for my iPhone that a friend recommended to a friend. I got it to kind of track my carbs. I read so much about nutrition and diet last weekend, it was a little ridiculous. After reading last weekend, I kind of came to this conclusion before this study was published.

However, I think I would add to the conclusion and say that it's important to eat low processed foods. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grain, and the like are examples of low processed food. My rule is to not eat things with ingredients I can't pronounce. Here's an example. There are AT LEAST six words I can't pronounce. Ugh! We eat bread that has ingredients like these: Organic white flour, organic whole wheat flour, salt and water. I can pronounce all of those!

The other thing I think that is important for a healthy diet is fiber. Here's my new favorite cereal. Believe it or not, despite it's VERY HEALTHY nutritional values, it doesn't taste that healthy. It's not sweet, but I really like it.

Okay I'm side-tracked. I wanted to discuss what I've learned about my weight and HOW I'm losing it so slowly. I've finally started to understand this since using the iPhone app. For the past two years, I've lost about 8 pounds a year. I don't believe in diets. I don't believe they work. I've just been making slow changes to the way I eat and increasing the amount of exercise I get. I don't feel like I've ever eaten less food than I've wanted to eat. I've been eating more fruits and vegetables, I've stopped eating most candy and sweet things. I never thought it would be possible for ME to give up ice cream. I pretty much have. I am shocked as I type this, but I don't miss it. We still go out for ice cream, maybe once a month, and I eat it then, but I don't eat it other times. I guess I did once, one night a month or so ago... I had a "hankering" and I went with it.

Okay, again side-tracked.... Anyway, the iPhone app has allowed me to understand a bit more about my caloric requirements and how I eat. The app tells me to maintain my weight, I can eat ~1800 calories a day. If I exercise, I can eat more calories and lose weight still. I find that on days I don't exercise, I want to eat my full allotment of calories. On days I exercise, I find that I don't tend to want to eat all of the calories that I exercise off, so I don't quite eat enough to maintain my weight. It's not a significant amount of calories a week, last week, it was ~600 calories less than I was supposed to eat with the amount of exercise I do. At that rate, it would take about 6 weeks for me to lose a pound.

If you do the math, if I lose a pound every six weeks, that is about 8.66 pounds a year. That's pretty much what I have been losing. If I didn't exercise, I imagine I'd end up slightly overeating each week. I'd probably end up gaining ~4 pounds a year. Yikes! According to this, I won't ever be able to stop exercising, but that's okay! I like to exercise.