MY PLANS - PART 1

Beginning January 4, I am going to start using My Food Diary on a daily basis.

Myfoodidary.com is an online program I have used in the past to record food, activity, weight and measurements. They also have an online community for support.

The nice thing about the program is that they have a huge data base of foods from restaurants and grocery items, so you can easily track not only calories, but other nutritional information. You can enter ingredients for recipes and save them. I also enter my typical breakfast and then just enter it as 1 item, instead of several individual componants.

In the Exercise Log I enter my daily activity, including exercise. My job requires a lot of standing, I enter that, too. The program then calculates the calories burned by the activities.

In the Body Log section, I can enter my wieght and measurements and then update over time.

TIME TO GET REAL

I am aware that I am becoming one of those people with multiple ailments, aches and pains and I don't like it. I don't want to talk about it. I keep trying to ignore it. I can't anymore.

For the past several years my weight has climbed from obese to morbidly obese. I have looked into surgery (too expensive). I have dieted, I have exercised. I know what I need to do. I obviously don't want to do it.

I have done as Oprah suggested and peeled back the layers to see what makes me overeat. I have read books and articles. I have gone to the doctor. The last time I successfully lost weight was in 2000. I went low carb. It was fairly easy, though expensive and time consuming.

This new blog will be my area to track my resolve to feel better and make lasting changes in my life. I plan to be pretty brutal with myself. I have asked my daughter to take a revealing photo of me to post.