A Healthier Life

It's Random Friday! Where nothing I say is connected to anything else I say! Where the Adderall XR is ignored in favor of the raging ADD! Where ... hey! Something shiny!

Okay, before I get to the new thing we're trying, I have to post a haiku, in honor Wonderful World of Wieners and Hallie's contest. Don't anybody else enter! I want to win! I don't think posting a haiku on my blog will count as an entry, but here goes (oh, just so you know, I hate haikus, and I can't ever see the imagery in poetry, which is why I love limericks, but this is for a good cause, so hush! And this isn't a haiku about Hallie anyway):

Blogging is so droll
All the best people visit
Making the time fly

See what I mean? I can't understand poetry, much less write it.

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Where was I? Mmm ... sipping my morning coffee. Sending the last child off to school. Eating a Pop Tart. No! No Pop Tarts! Let me show you why. The Hunny joined a group at work recently - actually, he signed up for a contest - called the Biggest Loser. Yes, like the TV show. He's the only man in the group, making the whole contest quite unfair, if you ask me, since men just drop weight when they set their minds to it. But there's money involved, so unfair works for me.

Hunny came home after entering the contest to tell me that the Girls at work (I just love it when he talks about the Girls. He's worked in education forever and I don't get jealous. It reminds me of the movie Mr. Mom, and they're his little poker and beer group, complaining about the housework. The Girls.) had found this fantastic website which tracks everything you eat. It's called The Daily Plate, and when registering you tell it all kinds of crazy things, like your height and weight, your average activity every day, what you want to be when you grow up. More importantly, you tell it how much weight you want to lose every week and it tells you how many calories you can eat every day. Then it keeps track of them and tells you when you've gone over.

To help it determine your daily calorie intake, you click on My Plate (top right corner) and type what you ate into the Search box. For instance, I just typed in "coffee non-dairy creamer," and it came up with a big list. I clicked on the first one and it took me to a page that describes what I clicked. Yep, that's what I had, so I clicked "I ate this." Today. And for breakfast. No, no Pop Tart. It also has every brand and restaurant known to mankind. The Hunny was typing in his Panera chopices while he was eating them. How cool is that?!

What's also cool (I didn't get into this at first. I'm REALLY SLOW that way.) is the little pie chart on the right that indicates how much of your daily diet is carb, protein and fat. Ouch. And there's a water glass for your water intake. This is an extremely cool tool.

This first few days of playing the game (this is more like a game than anything right now), I plan to just eat like I usually do and see what my diet looks like. Yesterday I didn't do so hot with protein, which is no surprise. I'm a carb fanatic. Between Pop Tarts and Ramen, I have a lock on the carbs. But I don't seem to be getting enough calories. The Adderall XR has stolen my appetite, meaning I've lost about 25 pounds since last summer. But I NEED to start exercising and eating right.

The other really neat thing about this site is that there are groups. You can join a group or choose to remain private. No one but you will ever see your profile. OR (and here's the potential fun) you could join me! My husband has a fun group to belong to, and he's invited me in, but I feel rather out of place with all those career women. Anyone care to join me? Let's start our own group! Or just try it out for a day or two first. I'm not saying that any of you need to lose weight or anything ... actually, you could join just to maintain, see what your eating habits look like on a pie chart (admit it - you've always wanted to know).

So there's the "big thing" I was waiting till today to reveal. I hate diets and weight loss programs. This isn't either. I'm starting to get just a little bit excited about it. Go check it out! And if you join my group, you can see what I eat. I know, that's not an incentive. At least you don't have to WATCH me eat. But that's a subject for a heebie jeebie post.

Until I write again ...

Flea