New Changes

I've made a couple of changes in the last few days. Minor changes that I hope will aid me.

First, and I think most importantly, I've started tracking my food. Right now, I'm using Spark People and My Fitness Pal. Eventually, I'll narrow it down to one or the other, but I wasn't sure which site I wanted to use, so I'm giving them both a try. It's my understanding that Spark People has been around longer, and so probably has better tools and a larger index of food. But I'm finding My Fitness Pal easier to use. There's also Calorie Count, which I've used in the past to track my weight. But I haven't actually entered any foods into their website before. It might be worth a try.

Second, I've started listening to Dr. Colbert's "I Can Do This Diet" on audio.

After the encouragement of a few fellow bloggers, and my mother-in-law, I thought he might have beneficial information to share. I've just started the book, so I haven't gotten any really good points out of it yet, but I'm sure they are in there.

Last week was a bad week. But I'm not going to let it get me down. I've worked hard this year and I'm not ready to give up yet. I think keeping this blog has really helped. I know getting feedback and encouragement from readers makes me feel awesome. Thank you all so much! 

Direct Life

My husband recently got a Direct Life Activity Monitor. I wasn't sure it was the right purchase for me. So I'm waiting a bit to see how motivating his is before purchasing my own. I've been looking at the different monitors like the FitBit, Bodybugg or the Gruve. If anyone has any first hand knowledge of any of these or the other devices, I'd love to hear about it!

The DH has already worn his Direct Life for the introductory week. It doesn't want you to change your daily habits for those first days so that it can accurately read your normal activity level. Then at the end of the week, it tells you that you're a lazy slug, or something like that. =)

DH is on his second week, meaning he has a daily goal now and he's trying to make sure he burns enough calories to keep the dots happy. See those green dots? There are 9 of them. The first 6 are each 15 % of your weekly goal. You want to get at least 6 dots. The last 3 are bonus dots.

Your weekly goal increases in small increments. It's supposed to be easy enough that you can keep up with it, but still challenging so that you will be losing weight. When you sync your monitor with the website, it has plenty of stats for you to see, like what time of day you're most active. It also gives you a rank against other people, though we're not sure exactly how this feature works yet.

You have to pay for the website after the first 4 months. But you get a fitness coach who supports you and provides advice on how to step it up.

So far, my DH seems happy with it. And I can tell it's motivating for him. This is just his first week, so it might be the newness, but he's been wanting to go on walks and work harder during his tae kwon do classes. All to keep the dots happy. =)

Tools To Help

I joined an online weight loss community called Calorie Count. I created a profile and actually typed out my current weight. I posted in an introduce yourself section. I even started tracking my food.

I hope to use it much more often. It has a section for tracking your activity and your weight loss. Plus there are recipes and such on there as well. The great thing about it is that it's all free! That, along with the weight watchers point calculator that I found online, and my friend's help, I'm hoping to keep myself in line.

I also bookmarked some other great sites for recipes. I hope that by planning out my meals, I will be able to restrict my calorie intake. Not buying snack foods at the grocery store will certainly help.

I really need this to be my turn.