One
year ago today, I downloaded MyFitnessPal to my cellphone. At the time, I was unhappy with my weight and
casting around for some help. The app is
an Internet food journaling mechanism.
I
wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the idea of journaling my food and drink
consumption or counting calories. I knew
it was, in fact, a very effective support for weight loss. I'd done it for several times in my life –
for a few weeks, maybe even a couple of months at a time. It 'works.'
But
it's a huge hassle!
Done
the old way, counting calories involved writing down everything you ate and
then looking up calories in a reference book or list. Within a few weeks or a couple of months at
the most, I'd begin to imagine I could drop the record keeping while still
hitting approximately the right calorie intake.
I've never been able to keep it up the journaling beyond the initial
weight drop: just too much nuisance.
Enter
MyFitnessPal.
I
chose this app because it came with good recommendations and seemed as good as
any other. I cannot make any comparisons,
but I now consider the choice pure serendipity.
I really like this app!
My
cellphone is almost always near at hand.
And for back up, I also have the app on my IPad and can access it from
any computer.
I
find it so low fuss, so manageable, that I have tracked my calorie count -- along
with calorie expenditure estimates -- every day for the past year. Though family health crises, my own included,
and through travel and holidays and the numerous ordinary and extraordinary
events that make up a year, not one day did I find any particular difficulty
recording information about my diet, exercise and weight status.
I've
dropped 25 pounds and in recent months have actually been using the application
to help me maintain my present weight, the weight I was given as my lifetime
ideal about the time I reached my full adult size over 45 years ago.
After
so many years of wanting and trying to lose weight, the experience of trying to
hold a stable weight – that is, to NOT lose more weight -- is a whole new
thing. I hope a year from now I can say
I've mastered this phase!
