Lose Weight Now... Ask Me How
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or health care professional. Before beginning any diet or exercise program, please check with your doctor or other health care provider as they can advise you much better than some random blogger.
With the new year having come and gone, I'm sure there are a lot of people who made and are working on keeping the resolution to lose weight, get fit, or stay in shape. This can be a hard one to keep (I've had a few experiences with this one...) but, with the help of technology, maybe not as hard as it used to be.
Ask any doctor for the best way to lose weight and keep it off, and they will say "eat less and exercise." It really can be that simple - if you burn more calories than you need to sustain your weight, you will get lighter (though I do realize that there are several other factors that can have an effect on weight loss for many people, such as genetic predispositions, thyroid issues, etc. Again, it I best to consult with your health care professional before beginning any weight loss program). The problem is making sure that you actually burn more than you take in. When I have tried to lose weight in by eating less in the past, I sometimes wouldn't see a change - mainly because while I thought I was eating less (and/or exercising the surplus away), but I actually wasn't.
Since this is something that I am interested, I'm starting a new category, fitness, where I will write write posts about ways technology can help you start, track, and maintain a healthier lifestyle. Today I'll cover online food diaries, a great way to monitor calorie intake for a weight loss program.
All the sites I have seen have pretty extensive databases of foods (both a "standard" database and user-submitted entries) and they allow you to add items that don't exist or are not correct. They also allow you to create custom recipes, so you'll finally know exactly how many calories your homemade Lasagna has. Many of the sites also track other items such as fat, sodium, vitamins, iron, etc. - all based on the standard USDA Nutritional Information requirements. This can be handy if, in addition to losing weight, your doctor advises watching intakes of things like fat, sodium, or cholesterol. Several of the Web sites have iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 apps to allow tracking no matter where you are, and also allow the scanning of UPC labels to quickly enter packaged foods.
But do they really work? The short answer is "yes." The longer answer is "Yes, but you need to be motivated and use the available resources." I have actually lost 38 pounds since September using one such site - http://myfitnesspal.com and exercising about 4 times a week. Others have had good luck as well. The hardest part for me starting out was remembering to log my food and exercise. Other people I know who use MyFitnessPal say they feel that it gives them too few calories per day. While that can be tweaked by changing weekly weight loss goals, I can see how it can be annoying.
With the new year having come and gone, I'm sure there are a lot of people who made and are working on keeping the resolution to lose weight, get fit, or stay in shape. This can be a hard one to keep (I've had a few experiences with this one...) but, with the help of technology, maybe not as hard as it used to be.
Ask any doctor for the best way to lose weight and keep it off, and they will say "eat less and exercise." It really can be that simple - if you burn more calories than you need to sustain your weight, you will get lighter (though I do realize that there are several other factors that can have an effect on weight loss for many people, such as genetic predispositions, thyroid issues, etc. Again, it I best to consult with your health care professional before beginning any weight loss program). The problem is making sure that you actually burn more than you take in. When I have tried to lose weight in by eating less in the past, I sometimes wouldn't see a change - mainly because while I thought I was eating less (and/or exercising the surplus away), but I actually wasn't.
Since this is something that I am interested, I'm starting a new category, fitness, where I will write write posts about ways technology can help you start, track, and maintain a healthier lifestyle. Today I'll cover online food diaries, a great way to monitor calorie intake for a weight loss program.
Online food diaries
One way to ensure that you lose weight is to keep a food diary. In the past few years, several free online resources have cropped up that help you do just that. These sites all work in a similar fashion. Users create an account and provide some basic information (current weight, target weight, how many pounds they want to lose each week) and the site sets goals (calories per day, exercise calories, etc.) based on this information. They provide the users with diaries to track daily food intake and exercise, and many also offer discussion forums and other social media functions like the ability to friend people and comment on achievements.All the sites I have seen have pretty extensive databases of foods (both a "standard" database and user-submitted entries) and they allow you to add items that don't exist or are not correct. They also allow you to create custom recipes, so you'll finally know exactly how many calories your homemade Lasagna has. Many of the sites also track other items such as fat, sodium, vitamins, iron, etc. - all based on the standard USDA Nutritional Information requirements. This can be handy if, in addition to losing weight, your doctor advises watching intakes of things like fat, sodium, or cholesterol. Several of the Web sites have iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 apps to allow tracking no matter where you are, and also allow the scanning of UPC labels to quickly enter packaged foods.
But do they really work? The short answer is "yes." The longer answer is "Yes, but you need to be motivated and use the available resources." I have actually lost 38 pounds since September using one such site - http://myfitnesspal.com and exercising about 4 times a week. Others have had good luck as well. The hardest part for me starting out was remembering to log my food and exercise. Other people I know who use MyFitnessPal say they feel that it gives them too few calories per day. While that can be tweaked by changing weekly weight loss goals, I can see how it can be annoying.
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