A few weeks ago I downloaded a new app for my iPhone called Lose It. It’s a calorie counter, but it also incorporates exercise, and the best part is that it’s pretty non-judgmental, as these things go. It lets you choose your own goal, and how fast you want to lost the weight, and then it just calculates the numbers for you. For example, I told it my current weight (I don’t want to talk about it) and that I wanted to lose thirty pounds (yes, hopelessly idealistic) in six months (hey, you gotta have some realism). And it told me my calorie allowance was roughly 2,100 per day. Way higher than I expected!
Which is the other thing about this app: it makes me feel good about my eating habits! I have it tracking my nutrients as well, and besides the fact that I eat about twice as much sodium as I’m supposed to (yeah, yeah, whatever. Salt is gooooood), I’m pretty on-target with everything else. And I’ve been coming in under my calorie count pretty much every day. Even Easter! And I’m burning way more calories in the day than I realized (the app has about 17,000 different exercises listed, from walking while pushing a wheelchair to luge, and yes, they include sexual activity, although not super specific). So I started out on a high note, feeling pretty damn validated.
But two weeks in the validation was pretty useless in the face of the three extra pounds I’d gained. What?! I was furious. I’d been doing everything right, and I saw this (further) setback as yet another piece of evidence to prove my theory that my body will not listen to reason. But as I said, all the evidence in the world, and even the conviction that I’m surely moving toward, won’t fix the problem. Because my body can’t be my enemy; any punishment brought upon it is brought double upon me. Double incarceration!
So I changed the numbers. I brought it down to fifteen pounds lost, at a rate of two pounds a week. This brought my calorie ‘budget’ down to 1,770, and so far I’ve gone down by a pound, but I don’t really feel like anything has changed. It’s only been a week, though, so we’ll see if anything changes. And if it doesn’t, maybe I’ll just have to try to make peace with my body. If you can’t beat ‘em…
So my ending summary is this: the Lose It app and other technological aids won’t necessarily help me lose weight, but what this app does do is make me much more aware of my intake, and not just what but how much; I measure out portions now, and I decide what to eat based on what else I’ve eaten that day, instead of what sounds tastiest / is cheapest. Unless it sounds really extra tasty.
PS The only real drawback to the app, besides the frustration of controlling my diet and not my weight, is that I think I've become one of those girls who can't stop talking about calories...
Which is the other thing about this app: it makes me feel good about my eating habits! I have it tracking my nutrients as well, and besides the fact that I eat about twice as much sodium as I’m supposed to (yeah, yeah, whatever. Salt is gooooood), I’m pretty on-target with everything else. And I’ve been coming in under my calorie count pretty much every day. Even Easter! And I’m burning way more calories in the day than I realized (the app has about 17,000 different exercises listed, from walking while pushing a wheelchair to luge, and yes, they include sexual activity, although not super specific). So I started out on a high note, feeling pretty damn validated.
But two weeks in the validation was pretty useless in the face of the three extra pounds I’d gained. What?! I was furious. I’d been doing everything right, and I saw this (further) setback as yet another piece of evidence to prove my theory that my body will not listen to reason. But as I said, all the evidence in the world, and even the conviction that I’m surely moving toward, won’t fix the problem. Because my body can’t be my enemy; any punishment brought upon it is brought double upon me. Double incarceration!
So I changed the numbers. I brought it down to fifteen pounds lost, at a rate of two pounds a week. This brought my calorie ‘budget’ down to 1,770, and so far I’ve gone down by a pound, but I don’t really feel like anything has changed. It’s only been a week, though, so we’ll see if anything changes. And if it doesn’t, maybe I’ll just have to try to make peace with my body. If you can’t beat ‘em…
So my ending summary is this: the Lose It app and other technological aids won’t necessarily help me lose weight, but what this app does do is make me much more aware of my intake, and not just what but how much; I measure out portions now, and I decide what to eat based on what else I’ve eaten that day, instead of what sounds tastiest / is cheapest. Unless it sounds really extra tasty.
PS The only real drawback to the app, besides the frustration of controlling my diet and not my weight, is that I think I've become one of those girls who can't stop talking about calories...
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