Al and I have come to the conclusion that we need to start eating better.  Too often, we take the easy way out when it comes time to mangia.  Most days, I don’t eat breakfast at all and Al has a tendency to have cookies with his coffee, on the rare occasions that someone in his office doesn’t bring in muffins, doughnuts, or some other goodies.  For lunch, we frequently succumb to the quick-and-easy take-out deli or restaurant foods.  And when dinner time rolls around, we’re often too tired and/or busy to take the time to cook a nutritious dinner.  Instead, we get take-out or go out to eat.   

Enter iPhone Apps. 

A little over a month ago, Al found an App for the iPhone called “Lose It.*”  It’s a great FREE program that easily installs on the iPhone where you can keep track of not only your caloric (fat, protein, carbs, and fiber) intake, but also your caloric expenditures, in the form of exercise.

Al is and always has been in better shape than I am.  He doesn’t need to lose nearly as much weight as I do, but he wants to keep better track of his protein v. carb intake.  This program works well for everything… calorie counting, nutrient tracking, and exercise.

If there’s a food that’s not already included in the program, like my wonderful Tandoor Chef Paneer Tikka Masala frozen dinners, it’s quick and easy to add it into the tracker.  The only stumbling block is adding foods from non-chain restaurants, where we kind of have to guesstimate the ingredients/amounts.  If you frequent chains, many of them have the caloric/nutrient information on their websites, so you can add the information into Lose It from that source.

So far, I’ve lost about 9 pounds (admittedly, about two of those pounds came from the benign growths that necessitated my surgery, but still…) and feel pretty damned good.  Currently, my exercise routine is next-to-nil, since I haven’t been released to normal activity by my doctor yet, but that will change very soon, which means I’ll be able to return to walking more than a block or two and yoga.  And once the weather breaks, Al and I will be getting our bikes out and getting them on the road.  I’ve got a specific cycling goal to reach by the end of summer, so the sooner the weather straightens up the sooner I’ll be able to start working on that project.

* When I was looking for a link for the Lose It App for this blog entry, I came across this website that mentions a few other FREE apps for weight loss/health tracking, including one from LiveStrong.  Although I’m happy with Lose It, I might have to give the one from LiveStrong a look-see, since I’m a fan of that organization.

February 27th, 2009 | Category: Cycling, Health | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL