Loseit (or: know what you eat)

I view loosing weight as a simple math. You need to get rid of more calories than you consume. Sounds simple? maybe for all those thin people out there who feel stuffed after munching on a carrot. However, for all the slightly to heavily overweight people who desperately try to loose weight, it's everything but simple.

This can be one heck of a frustrating process: first, you need to be aware of what you eat (Yes, that includes the box of chocolate chip cookies you sneaked in late at night thinking no one was watching...), then you need to be able to actually control it, which means limit what you eat or how much you eat of it. On top of all you need to understand the calorie value of every bite you take, then finally understand how many calories you burn so you can actually change something.

I read somewhere that in order to loose a single pound I needed first to "loose" (burn or take out from your daily diet) 3600 calories! let me please repeat the number: 3600 calories! for loosing one lousy pound.  So you either exercise like crazy to burn those calories or you eat less and reduce them from your overall diet or preferably you do a little of both. But how?? To my aid came technology.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I am a numbers freak. I need to measure everything and see the numbers in front of my eyes. So I got that Polar heart rate monitor that told me how many calories I burned while I was working out. Ok, that was a start.

Next, I researched and found that for my weight and height I was supposed to consume between 2000 to 2500 calories a day.  Now what was left was to find out exactly how many calories I eat. I guess I could look up the calories for everything I eat. I could also write it somewhere, calculate, sum it up, and keep track somehow... Well, I said I was a numbers guy but I definitely was not into making my life harder or adding more chores to the ones I already had...

God bless the iphone :). One day I stumbled upon an iPhone application which a friend of mine called "Life changing". That application was Lose It (http://www.loseit.com).  The Lose It application is integrated with a web site and allows you to put in what you eat so it can calculate your daily calorie consumption. You can add and customize foods and it even remembers your meals. And on top of all it is very simple to use.

I could enter my current and goal weight, my exercises, and even share it with friends (but i didn't :-) )
The really life changing aspect about this application for me was that I developed an awareness of how many calories were in every single bite I took.

An Apple-100 Calories , a piece of cake-450 Calories, Whole milk glass-120 Calories. No wonder it is so hard to loose weight, it is practically on the verge of impossible with all those calories flying around you, ending up in your mouth and than in your stomach.

I know it may sound discouraging, especialy when you're envisioning those chocolate chip cookies chasing you holding big flashing calories signs... but trust me. This can be exactly the push you need, at least it was for me.

The Lose It application was a significant participant in my journey to lose weight. I kept entering everything I ate and the workouts, no cheating and no rounding up, and it just did the job. I have already lost weight before I started using it but I have reached the famous plateau and felt stuck although I really wanted to loose some more. Since I started using it I lost at least an extra 12-15 pounds, but more importantly, I became aware of what I ate and how many calories were in it. This gave me control on the amount of food I consumed, something I never had before

Bottom line: Highly recommended, if you own an iPhone (and hoping to lose a few pounds), it is a MUST app to have!