Life

Make a pledge to ‘Lose It!’ in 2014 and keep it off

3 January 2014

First impressions

A number of years ago we managed to lose 60 pounds by counting our calories and getting into jogging. Unfortunately, we got sidelined by bursitis in our heels, and one by one, the pounds came creeping back on.

Just like many other people in the world, we have decided that 2014 is the year when we’ll work on losing weight and getting fitter. That calorie counting method worked well for us in the past, so we figure we’re going to go that route again.

One of our best motivators was keeping track of what we’d eaten and what exercise we’d done each day. Thanks to technology, we no longer have to write it all down in a wee book and guess how many calories there are in a medium-size red apple. Apps like “Lose It!” will help us succeed this year.

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How it works

You download the free app from the App Store, and then enter your personal information, such as your height, present weight and goal weight, along with how many pounds per week you would like to lose. “Lose It!” then calculates how long it will take you to lose the weight based on this information and gives you a total-calories-per-day amount that you should consume to reach your goal.

Once you have this data, you can start planning your attack.

This app can give you the calorie count of everything from restaurant foods to supermarket brands and can even scan the bar codes of items to bring up their nutritional numbers. It’s perfect to have on your iPhone when you’re shopping, and then you can also have it on your iPad at home.

Of course, watching what you eat is only half the battle; you have to exercise as well. Again, “Lose It!” can keep track of what you’ve accomplished and give you an equivalent calorie count. It lists every conceivable method of exercise, from walking to jai alai. Yes. Jai alai.

Lacking motivation? Get similarly minded friends to sign up for this app as well so you can add them to your “Motivate” list; that way you can be there for each other when you need support. Sometimes it’s easier to stick to a program when you know that someone else is in the same boat. How does the old saying go? “Misery loves company”?

When we tried it

Probably the hardest part of setting up this app was seeing our present weight in clear, black type on our iPad’s HD screen. There was no escaping the fact that very little existed between our poundage and that of a seasoned NFL player. We cast aside our questions on why we weren’t playing for the Miami Dolphins and plugged in our goal weight along with how much we wanted to drop per week. It seemed that it was all reachable within the same year. Hot dog! Already we felt better about ourselves, and with that, we signed up for a year’s membership at World Gym, our familiar stomping grounds.

In the few days that we have had “Lose It!”, we have managed to get three other friends to sign up (it’s amazing how much more keen people are when they hear that something is free) so we can push each other to keep going. Our hope is to participate in the annual St. Patrick’s Irish Jog in March, even if our face is a bit green by the time we reach the finish line. At least we’ll blend in.

We found out that a spiny lobster tail is only 233 calories, and a medium pickle is only eight calories. At this rate, so long as we stick with eating pickled lobster, the pounds will start flying off.

Did you know that a 30 minute game of darts burns 87 calories? Or that home repair burns about 133 calories every half hour? It just goes to show you that any kind of activity is better than nothing.

Final thoughts

It has long been proven that recording your food intake and exercise regimen makes a significant difference when it comes to weight loss success. Many years ago, dieters had to rely on the nutritional information provided on packages and guess the rest. Thanks to apps like “Lose It!”, it is much easier to be accurate with your calorie counting, no matter what you eat.

Using a similar app and with regular exercise, we lost a lot of weight four years ago, and it was easy to follow. We’re hoping to be a little easier on our heels this year so we don’t unnecessarily injure ourselves, so maybe by our birthday we’ll be rocking that little black dress on the red carpet.

Lose it!