This month I have gotten back on track in terms of actual metrics.  Keeping on track is making a difference.  Last month I was trying to find a community to keep me motivated and to share my experiences with, and I think that I might have found something similar, I’ve started following the people in the loseit reddit group.  There are a lot of people there who are also trying to lose weight for good, and while there are a lot of before and after pics, there are also a lot of people who are seeking advice about dieting and exercise, without focusing too much on the exercise and with just some sensible advice for dieting.  Along with that there are some other nifty things like a spreadsheet tracking the weight loss of everyone.  I think it has been a good thing so far.

There are a couple of changes that I’ve made in my diet the last month.  First, I’ve started counting my calories more closely, owing mostly to the fact that I carry my Android phone with me all the time, and I have signed up with the myfitnesspal app.  We’re getting very close to the proverbial eat watch which is postulated by The Hacker’s Diet.   I put all of my exercise and food into the application, estimating when necessary, and it gives me a number of calories over or under the target.  Based on that, I can tell whether I can eat a snack at night or not.  I use the estimates from the treadmill, which is where most of my exercise is coming from nowadays.   The second more recent change is to cut out all of the soda that I’ve had.  This change was more recent, but I think it has caused the change that you’ll see in the last couple days.  I’ve switched to coffee for my caffeine intake, but I only really have one large cup a day.  I think that the reduction of sodium from my diet might make a big difference.

According to the graphs, I’m accelerating my weight loss.  Weekly loss is the highest over any 30 day period since I’ve started blogging here.  After the basically zero progress for the last two updates, it’s really encouraging.   I also think that I am solidly below the 300 pound mark now.  Also the precipitous drop at the end of this month is also great, but of course I don’t expect to keep the rate of >1lb per day up.

This month also looks really good on the yearly graph.  And the weekly loss over the year is up as well of course.  Reading a lot into both of the graphs, you can kindof see a weekly repeating raise over the trend line.  It’s probably one of my days off.

Exercise hasn’t been too bad - I’m still doing almost all of my workouts on the treadmill.  For entertainment, I’ve started watching the UK Top Gear, as well as watching the US Top Gear as it comes out.  The UK version is much more entertaining.   I’ve increased the intensity of the workouts recently by raising the incline to 8.  I don’t know what 8 means, but it’s a lot more difficult in the hill sections of the workout.    Diana and I have also started with classes on dancing from the Arthur Murray school.  It’s been really fun to do, as well as being some good exercise while practicing and during the lessons.  I’ve been a bit worried about my sweat issues while doing the lessons, but I have some handkerchiefs now that will help me keep the wetness to a minimum.

Goals for this month are to make sure that I keep sure I don’t have any diet soda for a while, and also keep tracking all of my calories.  If I can keep up that, I believe that I will stay on the slow, steady progress.  Hopefully I’ll have more good news in my 2010 roundup which will probably come sometime early in January where I will be mostly looking forward.