Lose It? I lost it: 21 pounds in 52 days

Is it okay to brag for a little bit? Hope so. I’ve been waiting to share some good news — and a tip — about the diet I’ve been on, and I decided I’d post something when my weight loss reached 20 pounds. Well, I woke up this morning and skipped right past that to 21 pounds. Wooo-hoooo!

It all started when I woke up on January 6th and weighed more than I ever have in my life. I’d always told myself I’d get in shape and lose weight someday when I had more time to exercise, but this was a tipping point. Figured I had to make time to exercise, and it was now or never.

My plan: No fancy diets, just eating right and getting more exercise. I mentioned last month that a new fitness club was opening up less than a mile away, so everything was perfect.

I have to say that I had a little extra help in the form of an awesome iPhone app called Lose It! This is a screenshot of the home page, but there’s so much more going on.

With Lose It, I set my weight loss goal at the start: 26 pounds over six months. Seemed attainable and not risky. Lose It then told me how many calories I could eat each day and still lose that weight — it gave me a food target, which was a huge help.

Every morning (or as often as I want), I input my daily weight and it charts how I’m doing. After every meal, I also input what I ate and it tells me how many calories I ate and how many I have left. It has a lot of foods in its database, but I also have to “create new food”(s) when I eat something that’s not in there, and that’s easy to do (and kinda fun, I dare say).

When I exercise, it tells me how many calories I burned and those get subtracted from what I ate — in other words, credited toward my daily calorie allowance. It has all kinds of exercises in its system, all the basics that I do when I workout at the gym, and it even has stuff like yard work, hedge clipping, lawn mowing, etc.

This app has been a huge help. Thank you, Lose it!

I haven’t quite reached my goal — five more pounds to lose for that. When I get there, I’ll actually be at the same weight that’s listed on my driver’s license.

So, enough bragging about weight loss. Just wanted to share and, in case anyone out there in Readerville is also trying to or thinking about losing weight, offer some advice and info about the Lose It app. I think you’ll love it.