LoseIt

Over the years, I have tried many many weight loss programs. I remember drinking a horrible protein syrup substance once that was very nasty.It was supposed to take the place of a meal. I did weight watchers many times and was successful for a time. I had a stomach stapling back in the 1970’s and either the staples came out or my stomach stretched over time. Every program required me to pick an “all or nothing” approach to be successful and I was successful until I grew tired of the nothing and wanted to eat some of the foods normal people ate.

I recently tried a very expensive diet pill. I was skeptical because in general, they don’t do anything for me. I am a stress eater so appetite suppressants don’t do anything to help me…I never had to be hungry to want to eat something. And who knows if “fat burners” really work…they sound great, but who knows. Since the drug was not covered by insurance I had to wait until I got some help from my son who sent me some money. And so I tried it for a month. I still don’t know if they helped or not because half way through the month I discovered a really cool app on my new Nook.

The app is called Lose It and is a way to track how much you eat, the calories and nutrition etc. and subtract them from a daily limit given you determined by your weight and height and how much weight you would like to lose per week (up to 2 lbs.). Having done weight watchers before, you’d think this would not be anything new to me, but it was immediately captivating for me. For anyone dieting off and over the years, you pick up a lot of knowledge about diets and dieting and assume you remember what you need to know about calories and what to eat and what not to eat.

I decided to join Lose It. It is entirely FREE but there is an upgrade if you choose to use it later. It has an online database to help you track calories of fast foods and supermarket foods and if you have a nook or iphone or android you can enter your food calories on that or just enter  online. If you have an android you can use your bar code scanner to scan in nutrition and calorie information on your foods. Technology is a wonderful and exciting thing!

To offset the calories you eat, you can enter exercises or walking you do and the calories burned to “get back” calories to add to your daily total. There is something addictive to watching how many calories you eat at each meal and how many you can add back into your daily allotment by doing some exercises. And the Wii fit plus exercises, which include a lot of fun games are all included in the data base to count.

I realize I have a hidden incentive…I am home bound, need to lose weight to have knee surgery so I can walk and become more independent again, but this program is fun for me. Not every program suits everyone, but this one I really enjoy. It keeps me doing my home therapy exercises and have added my Wii exercises I can do and it helps me track my food.

The shocking thing I found out was exactly how bad and how fattening some of the fast food I used to eat was. I used to be one to eat half a large pizza for supper, but supreme or meat lovers would use more calories than I am supposed to eat in one day! Now, if we want pizza, I’ll eat a big salad first, and then have 2 or 3 slices of the less calorie types of pizza and be well satisfied. I was amazed to discover that pepperoni pizza was one of the better calorie choices and I love pepperoni pizza.

My husband and I have a Sunday brunch tradition. It has evolved from one type of food to another over the years and lately it is breakfast food. So he likes to go pick up a pancake platter from Whataburger that has 3 pancakes, butter and syrup and a sausage patty. I was shocked to discover this platter had 1104 calories! That was more than half of my daily allotment! This doesn’t mean I can’t do this anymore, but that I have to plan for it and realize I need to eat lower calorie choices for the rest of the day to stay within my calorie budget.

Does this work? Well, for me it is working. I joined Lose It on Aug. 18 and have lost 9.4 lbs. I am totally excited and no longer fear the scales. I have found web sites that help you to count your exercises or things such as housework and your calories from restaurants or home.

http://http://www.calorieking.com/foods/          http://caloriecount.about.com/

http://www.prohealth.com/weightloss/tools/exercise/calculator1_2.cfm

http://www.acaloriecalculator.com/calories-burned-calculator/

Help yourself to any of these helps if you need them. Check out the http://loseit.com webpage to sign up for the free app or check it out on your iphone or android device. And have fun! And so, my journey continues…

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