Frying In My Own Fat Weight Loss Challenge Update Week 11–New Calorie Counting App on the Horizon

[This article was first published as Week 11–New Calorie Counting App on the Horizon on Technorati.]

Unfortunately all of Week 11 of the Frying in My Own Fat Weight Loss Challenge was spent recuperating from what I now refer to as my "Mike Napoli World Series Incident."

Napoli, as you may recall, injured his ankle in Game 6 of the World Series. I injured my ankle after Game 6. The similarities of our lives pretty much stops there.
So this week left me sidelined with my foot propped up, a bag of ice and the new owner of one very unfashionable black boot. All of that meant, no exercise. No exercise translates into eating less. Eating less translates into grumpy.

And all of the above translates into no weight loss. But at least, there was no weight gain either.

With this extra couch potato time, I spent more time reading and searching for tips on losing weight or new stuff related to losing weight. It seems there's a new app on the horizon for counting calories called PlateMate.

Here's how it works: You put food on your plate. Take a photo of it and send it off for analysis.

According to articles which appeared in the Boston Globe and the New York Times,  "PlateMate uses a more complex crowd-sourcing tool, involving sets of individuals — getting small payments to analyze photos on a website — who analyze parts of the food photo, with some identifying the food and others estimating portion sizes. The trick is to have five individuals estimating portion sizes on each plate and then averaging those guesses."

Supposedly, all of this gives a fairly accurate count of calories. Of course, one dietitian who was interviewed pointed out, “You can look at a photo of a quiche and have no idea what’s really in it. Is it made with regular cheese or low-fat? Skim milk or whole milk? You’ll only be getting a guesstimate of calories.”

She's got a point. Still, I'm looking forward to PlateMate which is suppose to be available sometime this year.

I'd love to be able to try it, but in addition to being stuck with a sore ankle and an very unfashionable black boot, I am also stuck with a dumb phone until my phone carrier decides to give me an upgrade.

I bet Mike Napoli doesn't have that problem either.

Week 11–Let's blame the World Series for this dieting setback--The "Frying-In-My-Own-Fat" Weight-Loss Challenge Update

[This article was first published as Week 11–Let's Blame the World Series for this Dieting Setback on Technorati.]

I blame the World Series. Specifically Game 6.

It was bound to happen. A major setback for  the Texas Rangers in their World Series bid and for me in my Week 11 of this Frying-In-My-Own-Fat Weight-Loss Challenge.
In addition to a come-from-behind-win in extra innings by the Cardinals, Texas Ranger Mike Napoli also injured his ankle in Game Six. And in a twisted show of solidarity, my ankle took a turn for the worst shortly after 6 a.m. that following morning.
Game Six pretty much sealed and doomed the Rangers. The Rangers couldn't overcome that loss, and the Cardinals won the series in Game 7.

And for my Week 11, Game 6 doomed me as well. I really don't have much to show for weight loss. In fact, I don't believe I have any. I blame the sprain.

I wish I could say I was doing something fascinating or interesting when I received my injury. You know, something like sprinting after a dress code violator while on hall duty or tackling a test cheater. I wish I could say there was something Napoli-like about this thing.

But sadly, all I can say is that I inadvertently slid while walking on my driveway in the darkness of the morning and found myself prone and teary eyed and wondering if Napoli's sprain hurt as much as this.
Yes, my injury was more a classic rendition of "I've-fallen-and-can't-get up."

It's a good thing I had my cell phone on me because I had to use it to call my husband to come out of the house and help me get up and hobble back in. Otherwise, I'd still be crawling military-style toward my front door.

Sad, but true. So this ankle thing benched me from exercising for the remainder of Week 11 and pretty much for all of upcoming Week 12.

As if all of that wasn't bad enough, I read about a study conducted by a group of Australian researchers that concluded, "Obese people may regain weight after dieting due to hormonal changes, a University of Melbourne and Austin Health study has shown."

That triggered a bunch of headlines like this one… "Not your fault! Hormones linked to weight regain."

According to that article, "Any dieter knows that it's hard to keep off weight you've lost. Now a study finds that even a year after dieters shed a good chunk of weight quickly, their hormones were still insisting, "Eat! Eat! Eat!""

So you see, it's not my fault.

Blame it on those hormones.

Or the World Series.

Either way, I think I deserve a walk to home plate, and I'm not talking about the in-field kind either.

Pounds, Panera & the Godfather-- Week 10: Small weight loss bolstered by other breakthroughs

[This article was first published as Week 10–Small weight loss bolstered by other breakthroughs on Technorati.]

Now don't get all in a dither, but this week's weight loss was pretty paltry--only a half a pound.
A lesser person probably would have been epically discouraged, and I probably would have except I believe I've made some rather monumental breakthroughs–and not the kind involving clothing seams either.

For the first time in a very, very long time I went out for lunch and didn't eat everything on my plate. OK, so I ate my little piece of whole grain baguette (all 140 calories) that came with my Panera Pick Two order. But the rest--the salad and soup--I didn't. I just ate until I was full.
Confession time: I did purchase a very scrumptious looking 99 cent bakery item–The Double Fudge Brownie with Icing, though. (Now about this time a bunch of you skinny minnies are probably slapping yourselves upside your little tee tiny heads.)
But wait… I brought the treat home, checked on line  and discovered that tasty brownie weighed in at 470 calories, containing about as much as my lunch. So, instead of eating the entire thing, I cut off a small piece and saved the rest for my husband.
Now I realize all of that isn't the stuff that makes fodder for such shows as the Biggest Loser, but let's face it, Anna Kournikova, Dolvett Quince or Bob Harper aren't going to come knocking at my door to give me a thumbs up or yell encouragement as I battle myself in my own  weight loss challenge. I'm on my own here.
I knew it was going to be slow going especially since I am old(er). I read with interest an article entitled, "You can be a big 'Loser' at any age--here's how." Do we really need anyone to tell us the 50-plus blue team is at a disadvantage?
According to this article, those of us in our 40s and 50s need to load up on some omega-3 fatty acids for their "anti-inflammatory benefits" and "help with depression."
I don't think I need Bob Harper to tell me that my 99 cent double fudge brownie with icing doesn't contain any of those nifty omega-3 fatty acids.
And I'm fairly certain we probably need those nifty omega-3 fatty acids to  "help with the depression" which surely will ensue from either (1) not being able to eat that brownie or (2) the overwhelming guilt from eating that brownie.
I really don't know why I bother reading these fitness/weight loss articles. One of the suggestions was to reduce our calorie intake by 100 calories a day. OK, so that's reasonable.
But then there was this little suggestion: "If your family is having spaghetti and meatballs, have meatballs and spinach instead."
Spinach? Really?
All I could think of was how different Marlon Brando would have looked in the "Godfather" eating meatballs and spinach. And somehow that famous line wouldn't be so famous, if Clemenza had said, "Leave the gun and take the spinach."
I think the mere suggestion would have been enough for the Corleone family to go to the mattresses.