If you came across my blog a year or so ago, you will know that I went on a new healthy living regime at the beginning of 2008. I had put on a lot of weight and was in danger of going up another dress size. However over a year I managed to lose a stone, get fit (I swam 22 miles in 10 weeks in a sponsored swim), and give up smoking.
Eating just one or two hundred extra calories a day can pile on the pounds over time, and it can happen so slowly a person may not notice it happening until they need to go out and buy new clothes. That was what happened to me when I was at University doing my degree, a combination of cheap student cooked breakfasts and big baguette lunches, and shopping regularly in the sales for clothes, by the end of the four years I was three and a half stone overweight. I only managed to lose it afterwards by calorie counting.
Now unfortunately my age is against me, my metabolism has slowed down (the rate at which my body burns calories), also I am on medication which increases my appetite (and I’ve always had a good appetite) Therefore if I don’t keep an eye on what I eat and the exercise I take I can easily pile on the pounds. This is what has happened to me since Christmas, I have a bit of a muffin top, and my jeans are getting a little tight. So I have decided to get back on the case for a few weeks.
Recommended by a friend I joined a really good site where you can keep a food diary and log exercise, make friends, and join groups to keep you motivated. There are is mixture of people on there, and I was shocked to see a few people who weighed less than me with targets that if I achieved I would look barely alive, however the majority of people on there are struggling with their weight and have realistic goals. You don’t have to want to lose weight to be on there. You have a choice of picking that you want to: lose weight, maintain weight, or gain weight. At the beginning you also log your general level of activity such as; whether you sit most of the day or have a physical job. You also log your weight and your target weight, the site will estimate how many calories you can eat a day (or you can change this amount up or down if you want faster or slower results).
The idea is that every day you log everything you eat and count the calories as you go. On your home page you will see a calorie metre and a burn metre (which goes up during the day and is determined by how active you said your lifestyle was). Daily you can log any exercise/activity you do and this increases your burn metre and therefore the amount of calories you can consume. There are also groups you can join, I have joined a group for women over 40, people who want to lose between 6 and 10 pounds, and a general women’s health group. Each group has a forum for discussion which you can join in with and make friends with similar people. I have already replied to a discussion about someone who has found they may have an under active thyroid.
If you want to lose a few pounds, or just try not to put weight on, and you have time and can access the internet daily then this site may be worth a go. Check it out:
