On-Going Weight Loss

February 14th, Valentine’s Day! As usual, there was food. Chocolate candy, strawberries dredged in chocolate, chocolate cheesecake… Lets see what else can chocolate be put on to add to the carb count? Well, you get the idea!

It seems that there are absolutely no holidays left that are not “high-carb” events. One after the other, the holidays arrive and with them the temptation to foods that are not a part of the low carbohydrate lifestyle. If you are a frequent reader of this web site, you have struggled with me through the “Twelve Days of Christmas” Part I and Part II. Well, I think I have finally found some additional help for the challenge of ongoing weight loss.

I have perfected the maintenance part of low carbing. I have no problems maintaining my current weight, give or take a pound or two gain, and I always lose those again quickly. But ongoing weight loss has been somewhat elusive for me. Three years ago, when I weighed 300+ pounds, it seems like no matter what I did the pounds fell off. I just had to stay relatively low carb. Now, though, after three years of living a low carbohydrate lifestyle, I found that my weight loss had stalled! No matter what I did, I was not losing! I was “yo-yo-ing” between the same darn 3-4 pounds. Up and down, up and down…… Very frustrating!

In my last article I detailed my “secrets for success:”

1. Aim for some “10-carb days,” and strive to average 15-20 carbs a day most days.
2. Drink nothing but water, allowing myself only either 1 cup of coffee a day or one diet soda.
3. Begin to exercise at a higher level than I had been.
4. Quit taking the “bites,” those little nibbles of high carbohydrate foods that set off cravings. No nibbles!

I did all of the aforementioned things and still found that I was NOT LOSING! So, rather than panic, freak-out, go off-plan to console myself, and gain even more weight, I went back and looked at WHAT I WAS TRULY EATING! No more guessing!

Someone on the Atkins Diet Support message board posted a link to an on-line tool for managing food intake, weight loss, and exercise program called FitDay. I was somewhat skeptical, because the other on-line tools I’d looked into were complicated, tedious, and just plain too difficult to use on a daily basis. I overcame my hesitancy and checked out the link.

FitDay is very user friendly. You select a type of food or an actual food item through their search feature. The program logs your food intake and lists ALL the nutritional information. The nutritional breakdown includes not only the carbohydrate counts, but the calories, fat, and protein. IT’S ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL! You can even enter in 1/2 of a food item or 1/4 of a cup of cottage cheese. This program stores your input for the day and you can go back into it periodically throughout the day and add the food you consume.
So, you say, what makes this different from a carb counter book or any other program? Well, for me it was the ease and convenience; it takes less time than individually looking up all those carbohydrate counts. It doesn’t hurt that it’s free, either. But most importantly, using the site has been an eye opener!

Remember those “bites” of food I would indulge in and talk myself into believing they were just “bites/nibbles?” Well, those bites and all the food I was eating totaled up to far more than the 20 grams of carbohydrates I was allowing myself! The first day I actually used the program, by lunch I had consumed 1000 calories and 20 carbs! WOW! What a shock that was for me. I was nowhere near the “20 carbs a day” goal I had set for myself. It’s amazing what food has unsuspected carbohydrates; so many of those products that list their carb count as “0” on the nutritional label on the package actually do have carbs and they do add up!

Needless to say, I’M HOOKED on this web site!!!!!!! I’ve been using www.FitDay.com for 2 weeks now, I have not only lost all of my holiday weight but I’m also down 2 additional pounds! I am amazed at how fast the calories add up when low carbing. True, in the beginning I didn’t have to count anything but carbs. I didn’t count a lot of items I should have and I still lost weight! Now though, it is harder. I have found that the online tools available, and the support found online through the message boards and chat rooms are invaluable.

Denise is a 38 year old educator from Texas, she and her husband have been living the low carb way of life for 3 years.