The Weight of the Matter

Worse than the stereotypical Freshman 10 one gains when entering their first year at a college or university program is the Marriage 20. Or the pregnancy 60. Or the pregnancy 60 twice in less than two years. Been there, done that.

Past efforts to combat my weight include gym memberships, healthy food programs, and crash diets. Nothing works, and do you want to know why? Because I am lazy and like all the wrong kinds of foods. Even if I liked all the right kinds of foods, it probably wouldn't help because I'd still be too lazy to put time and effort into cooking from natural ingredients. If it's already in a box or a can, and and the instructions include an option for heating in the microwave, I'm right there! But lately I am doing better.

Thanks to a suggestion from my friend over at Dragonflies@Dawn I now record everything I eat in a day's time using a cool app called MyNetDiary. It really helps me stay aware not only of what foods I'm putting into my body, but also the portion sizes of those foods. I tried something like this once before and kept track on my own. The benefit of using the app is that I don't have to waste time looking up how many carbs are in a tablespoon of peanut butter or a slice of provolone cheese. Even if the amounts others previously entered into the system are relatively close, it's good enough for me.

The MyNetDiary app has a few other benefits as well. One is that it remembers my past entries. I inhale iced tea and vanilla lattes like vampires slurp type-O negative. The first few days, I was shocked at how much tea and coffee I really drank, mainly because of all the sugar I add to these already delicious beverages. I was quickly inspired to instead drink more Propel. You know...that flavored water sitting on the bottom shelf of my pantry since last summer.

Another benefit is that along with a variety of grocery items, other users have also already entered the statistics on foods from many popular restaurants. Last week on the way to an appointment with my doctor, my husband had a craving for breakfast from the dreaded Golden Arches. I pulled up the app on my Android phone and tada, I learned that it wasn't so bad if I had an Egg McMuffin and a glass of orange juice as long as I went easy on the carbs at lunchtime.

My goal is to stay on track with counting the carbs of everything I eat, and if I can continue doing a somewhat okay job with minimal exercise then I should be at my target weight (and more importantly, a much smaller size of jeans) by June 1, 2013. Ideally, if I begin to drop the pounds then I should naturally have a bit more natural energy that doesn't come in the form of a Mountain Dew Amp or coffee with the funky green mermaid logo.

And, I have a really snarky comment about what to do if it doesn't work. Except written out it sounded more bitchy than sarcastic, and so I backspaced over it. Instead, I'll leave off with this.

I really, really want an extra-large cherry cheese danish and a Pepsi. And instead, I'm going to have an apple slathered with peanut butter and a glass of water.