Weekly Weigh-in (Week 42)

Sunday yet again and time for my weekly weigh-in.

Been feeling the urge for salad the past couple days, an urge I make a point of sating whenever it comes up for two reasons, if my I'm getting a craving for something I generally consider there to be only a couple reasons, my body is trying to tell me I need that, or that it thinks it needs it. Since I fail to see myself as a salad addict, I'm going with a legitimate need. Secondly, I actually like salad.

I've been doing falling down a bit on my fruits and veggies of late, which probably accounts somewhat for the salad craving, but I've been doing better with my calories most of the time. Now, last week I hinted that there was a reason I put all the calorie information for various dishes that went into my pocket index into excel, and this week I'd like to share that reason. An iPhone app called Meal Diary. Meal Diary has been deprecated in favor of another app, but I prefer Meal Diary for a few reasons I'll detail below.

The reason I put together the excel chart is because using that I was able to have the system calculate an average and standard deviation, which I used as the Small, Medium, and Large sizes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack on Meal Diary. I like the way it handles calorie entry for meals because I can either enter an exact number if I know it, or just pick if it's Small, Medium, or Large if I don't know the exact number. Once it's entered in the app takes care of charting the data, and provides charts for the past couple weeks for calories in. It also can track calories burned from exercise and etc. so that helps keep my calorie counts that much more accurate.

It also allows you to enter in weight measurements which it tracks and graphs much like the calorie measurements. I like Meal Diary better than it's replacement because of the calorie entry method, it is much simpler than a slider which I cannot easily get to the right number, or having to look up each individual food item to add to my meal. The thing I really like about Meal Diary is how simple it is to track my calorie intake on the go. I can quickly and easily enter in a decent approximation of what I'm eating, and that works well enough for my needs right now. Tracking my calories is my current plan for helping manage my weight, if I can balance my calories in with my calories out, and manage the in appropriately, it should help with my weight. I'm aware that it's slightly less simple than just calories in vs calories out, but the subtleties there are something I'll save for a later date.

So let's look at the scale for this week. 217.4, down 3.8 pounds since last week, 65 since I started. Only about 10 pounds away from my next big milestone. I've come a long way, and my life has been made all the better for it. Even still, I've got a ways to go before I'm at a place I'm really happy with, so I'll see you all next week with an update.