Dad Revisited

My New Year’s Resolutions include a pledge to lose weight and get in better shape. I’m really bad at working out alone, but luckily my quest for a better bod is supported by technology.

I’m using this Tanita scale, which measures my body fat, BMI, and water content. Last time I got on it my weight was 250 and my BMI was, well, embarrassing. I only weigh myself once a week, as I’m told this is the best way to make sure not to be disappointed. I don’t know if it’s working. I still get depressed when I get on it. I think that’s related more to the fact that I have to look OVER my gut to see that I am overweight. It’s the Sunday Morning Weigh In Double Whammy!

When I go to the gym, I listen to and watch videos on my iPod Touch. They have 47 televisions in the joint, but I never like anything that they show CNN, Fox, NBC, ESPN, ick ick ick. Instead, I have my Touch with which I can listen to my podcasts, and catch up on my Olberman. The Touch is a great little device, and while I’m a big fan of free wireless, I’m glad my gym does not have it. I’d never exercise if they did. I’d be trying to check my email on the elliptical, or worse yet, trying to answer it.

I also use my iPod Touch to keep track of my weight with the help of a little robot application called Weightbot. Weightbot is a cute little robot that tells me my BMI is too high. I don’t care for the little robot very much, but I do like the interface on Weightbot. It’s got a slick calendar that scrolls along the bottom of the screen. Many of the other apps for iPhone look a little kludgy, but this is one of the better ones I’ve seen.

I’ve been using My Calorie Counter to keep track of what I’ve been eating and the nutritional values. It’s an online database with many of the most popular foods already listed. It’s not perfect (there are 22 pages of pizza, but I was hard pressed to find plain old slices of freshly prepared pizza.) My Calorie Counter doesn’t all of the fast food items in it’s database, but it does allow you to add any foods you have not found in a search manually. That’s how I added the Eggwhite Veggie Flatbread sandwich to my personal diet journal. My Calorie Counter was kind enough to let me add the sodium, which was over 600 grams! I was way over my sodium budget for the day, and you can bet that now that I’ve checked Dunkin Donuts nutritional chart I will not be back for anything but coffee.

I’m sure some of you have better solutions to share. If you do, please let me know. I can use all the help I can get. 50 pounds is a lot of weight to lose, and I can tell you from experience it comes off a lot harder than it goes on. No gadget I own can just slough off the pounds, but they do keep me company while I’m trying.

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Tags: apps, caloriecounter, diet, dieting, exercise, ipod, ipodtouch, scales, Technology, touch, weightbot