But who's counting...

Left to my own devices, I'd probably be a pretty lazy guy. Truth be told, were I not married to a wonderful wife and living with our new, beautiful baby girl, I think I'd make a great shut-in. Still, excersise has not been the hardest part of this process for me. Waking up and sweating isn't fun, but it's my eating that has given me trouble.

When I started this process in May, my plan was just to exercise and try and be healthy. I very intentionally avoidable any use of the D word. I didn't want to go on a diet. I don't like diets. They feel absolutely unnatural to me. If I wasn't supposed to eat, why is there always such delicious food lying around?

The worst are those novelty diets. No-carbs; no way. Cabbage soup; try it and I'll stage a hunger strike. Do people start these diets with the intent to live the rest of their lives without carbs or non-soups? How would you get up in the morning if you knew that you'd never taste ice cream again?

Sufficed to say, moving forward with getting healthy and losing weight, I've realized that I have to pay at least a little attention to what I'm eating. No novelties here, though, I'll just be tracking my calories and trying to exercise moderation in all things.

To this end, inspired by Cora's Fit to Tell blog, I've started using the Livestrong website's My Daily Plate function. It lets you input all the things you eat each day. It counts all the calories and nutritional information. Even better, you can add your daily exercises. Today, for instance, I've eaten a Nutrigrain bar and a bowl of oatmeal. I also swam 1500 meters this morning. The result, Livestrong tells me that my net calories for the day are hovering at -530.

I started using this service last week, and over the last seven days I've averaged a little over 1600 calories a day. Not surprisingly, my weekends numbers are higher.

The real value of this service, though, is that it has me thinking before I eat. That in and of itself is a big improvement for me.