The apps that I'm going to post on are called LoseIt and Striiv. I chose them because they got pretty great reviews and were FREE! Gotta love free! But why use an app? Why not just diet? Good question, thank you for asking. That's the reason for this post. You gotta understand why I use apps before diving into the apps themselves.
I was in the military for nearly 10 years. My last assignment was as a Drill Sergeant (DS). One of the many things that you're responsible for as a DS is Soldiers that are on the Army Weight Control Program (AWCP...unless the acronym has changed since I got out many moons ago). I never had a problem with my weight when I was in the military. I ate what I wanted and I did the Physical Training (PT) that my unit did and I was fine. For many Soldiers with different body types and metabolisms this is not enough. A Soldier on AWCP would usually be given additional PT. This can certainly help, but it's not a solution. We would always tell our Soldiers to keep a food log. To write down everything that they ate each day and how much. Sounds great on paper and a food log can be very helpful...if you know what a serving size is and how many calories are in each serving. The bottom line is it was really up to them to lose the weight or they would be separated from the service.
So I got out of the Army pregnant with my 2nd child and there was no one to whip this former DS back into shape after leaving. To add to the lack of organized PT in my civilian life there was the fact that 1) I had to teach myself to cook so I could feed my growing family, 2) I realized that I'm a pretty damn good cook, 3) I loved eating what I cooked, and 4) I was depressed. No this wasn't post-pardum depression. This was post-Army depression. I had a stellar career. I was a DS...people knew who I was and now when I would go to functions it was all, "So who's your husband?"...like I wasn't a person of my own with my own achievements and dreams. It. Was. Depressing.
I discovered that when I'm depressed or stressed I eat. Not good. When I joined the service at 23 I weighed about 120 pounds. When I left the service I weighed 140 pounds. Sure some of it was muscle, but many times when you're a DS you spend more time correcting the form of trainees doing PT than participating yourself and there's little "free time" to go off on your own and exercise. Too busy a day and too long a week. Being a DS rarely ends when you go home for the night.
So after being out of the military for over 7 years something happened. At the beginning of April I was at 163-ish pounds and the doctor told me my cholesterol was going up. This is par for the course in my family. I was only borderline, but my good cholesterol wasn't high enough. Exercise would help. OK...I'll put that on my long "to-do" list...whatever.
Then around the same time I noticed how big my arms were looking. A common complaint from my sisters, but I never really noticed before. I also began to notice that my clothes were getting way too tight for me and I had already sized-up a year or two before. If I didn't do something soon I'd have to buy new clothes for the expanding new me. While I have no sadness over a good clothes shopping spree, this wasn't the direction I wanted to be heading. Additionally, when I would go clothes shopping all the cute stuff wasn't looking as cute on me anymore. I was wearing clothes to hide my body.
Everyone would tell me that I didn't look like I weighed 160+ pounds, but what I really was doing was hiding it. What mattered was that I started noticing. The pictures I was in with my boys did not make me feel any better about myself. I had gone from a fairly fit person to a 40 year old not happy about the way she looked.
You can say all you want about how television/media makes us feel like we have to be skinny. Sure. They show us some unrealistically skinny people and I don't want that. What I want is to be happy with how I look and that meant dieting. I'd tried dieting before and it didn't work. Why would this be any different? I wasn't convinced it would be, but I knew that I had to do something and I had to do something that worked. That's when using the apps started.
A friend of mine posted that she was using LoseIt and wanted to know if any of her friends had the app. I went to look at it and review it. Great reviews and a great price. Let's download this bad boy!...then I checked and saw that apparently I had downloaded it previously and NEVER USED IT! Yeah, that's typical me....so I finally started using it.
I like techno-gadgets. I'm no computer guru (I've got a tech-saavy hubby for that) but I do like boundaries. I'm a military girl at heart and I like organization. I also want something easy to use. This was.
My pedometer was crap...crap...crappity crap. It broke. I replaced it. It broke. I said "screw it!" I went looking for a pedometer app for my iPhone and found Striiv. Odd name, but like LoseIt the reviews were great and the price was right. Heck I take my iPhone everywhere anyway so why not use it as a pedometer and get credit for ALL the moving I do during the day. The ones I purchased at the store were horribly inaccurate too (yes, I've worn two at once to compare).
I gave myself a goal of hitting 135 pounds by the end of October. By the middle of June I had gone down to about 148 pounds. I'd never been able to stick to a diet and as silly as it sounded these apps were really making a difference for me. I did gain about 2 and a half pounds when I went on vacation and found counting calories rather inconvenient, but I should be able to make my goal or get quite close by my deadline. I may even change it to 130 pounds. I'm excited and, yes, I started noticing a change in my clothes. It's not time for a new wardrobe yet, but the muffin-top is gone and the clothes fit properly. I'm not hiding as much, but I'm not where I want to be....yet.
Will using these apps work for you? I don't know. What I do know is that you have to find something that suits you or it won't work. If just cutting back on your portions works. Great. If keeping a log works. Great. This works for me. Great.
I have friends and family that do fad diets. Fad diets are bad diets in my opinion. You will NEVER see me doing an all liquid diet to "cleanse" my body. They don't work. You think they are working, and you do initially lose weight, but it's not long term unless you make a change. Fad diet.
Others cut wheat or carbs completely out of their diet. Not gonna happen here...EVER. I love me some pasta and bread and BEER. Nope. Not gonna happen. Do you know what happens when you try stuff like this? You'll lose weight. You'll most likely also plateau and then wonder why you aren't losing anymore. You can't just cut one thing out of your diet and expect miracles. All you are doing is depriving your body of nutrients it needs. I've been told "Oh after awhile I don't crave the candy, bread, pasta, etc anymore." Great for you. Do you know what most people will do during a crazy fad diet? Binge. That's not good for you or your diet.
If you want to avoid GMOs (genetically modified food) then the easiest way is to eat organic. No, I don't because it's EXPENSIVE and we're a single income family. I have my dream of retiring to a farm in Wisconsin and growing my own GMO-free food for eating and preserving, but right now it's not feasible. I'd love to see our government deal with the GMO issue (which is still very new to me) but they can't deal with anything right now so the outlook is grim there.
I'm no certified nutritionalist. Apart from my military and personal experience I can only tell you that when you do crazy things to your body, your body will do crazy things. Don't starve yourself of what your body needs. Give it what it needs in moderation and exercise. The exercise can be ANYTHING! Get up and MOVE! If you think you're too heavy then stop shoving food into your mouth. That was a hard lesson for me to learn because I didn't realize I was even doing it.
I know that many of my friends that have tried fad diets would just say "zip it, Cherie, " and that's fine, because the bottom line is if they truly believe that the diet worked for them (placebo effect or for real) then I'm happy for them. Worried about the lasting effects, but happy that they are happy. Just as my idea of what I want to weigh and look like may not be right for other people. I wouldn't want it to be. Just remember to be HAPPY with who you are.
Tomorrow I will post on LoseIt which was the first app I started using. I don't know everything about the app, but I know what I love about it and I'll try to explain/share some of my favorite features and why I think it's so convenient. I'll post on Striiv after. They just updated the app so I'm relearning a few features, but it shouldn't take long.
I leave you with a little Foamy the Squirrel from Ill Will Press. It's rather harsh and lots of swear words, but it does express very well my distaste for crazy diets (Weight Watchers is NOT a fad diet and it has proven effective for so many people although I have no experience with it).
I like techno-gadgets. I'm no computer guru (I've got a tech-saavy hubby for that) but I do like boundaries. I'm a military girl at heart and I like organization. I also want something easy to use. This was.
I gave myself a goal of hitting 135 pounds by the end of October. By the middle of June I had gone down to about 148 pounds. I'd never been able to stick to a diet and as silly as it sounded these apps were really making a difference for me. I did gain about 2 and a half pounds when I went on vacation and found counting calories rather inconvenient, but I should be able to make my goal or get quite close by my deadline. I may even change it to 130 pounds. I'm excited and, yes, I started noticing a change in my clothes. It's not time for a new wardrobe yet, but the muffin-top is gone and the clothes fit properly. I'm not hiding as much, but I'm not where I want to be....yet.
Will using these apps work for you? I don't know. What I do know is that you have to find something that suits you or it won't work. If just cutting back on your portions works. Great. If keeping a log works. Great. This works for me. Great.
I have friends and family that do fad diets. Fad diets are bad diets in my opinion. You will NEVER see me doing an all liquid diet to "cleanse" my body. They don't work. You think they are working, and you do initially lose weight, but it's not long term unless you make a change. Fad diet.
Others cut wheat or carbs completely out of their diet. Not gonna happen here...EVER. I love me some pasta and bread and BEER. Nope. Not gonna happen. Do you know what happens when you try stuff like this? You'll lose weight. You'll most likely also plateau and then wonder why you aren't losing anymore. You can't just cut one thing out of your diet and expect miracles. All you are doing is depriving your body of nutrients it needs. I've been told "Oh after awhile I don't crave the candy, bread, pasta, etc anymore." Great for you. Do you know what most people will do during a crazy fad diet? Binge. That's not good for you or your diet.
If you want to avoid GMOs (genetically modified food) then the easiest way is to eat organic. No, I don't because it's EXPENSIVE and we're a single income family. I have my dream of retiring to a farm in Wisconsin and growing my own GMO-free food for eating and preserving, but right now it's not feasible. I'd love to see our government deal with the GMO issue (which is still very new to me) but they can't deal with anything right now so the outlook is grim there.
I'm no certified nutritionalist. Apart from my military and personal experience I can only tell you that when you do crazy things to your body, your body will do crazy things. Don't starve yourself of what your body needs. Give it what it needs in moderation and exercise. The exercise can be ANYTHING! Get up and MOVE! If you think you're too heavy then stop shoving food into your mouth. That was a hard lesson for me to learn because I didn't realize I was even doing it.
I know that many of my friends that have tried fad diets would just say "zip it, Cherie, " and that's fine, because the bottom line is if they truly believe that the diet worked for them (placebo effect or for real) then I'm happy for them. Worried about the lasting effects, but happy that they are happy. Just as my idea of what I want to weigh and look like may not be right for other people. I wouldn't want it to be. Just remember to be HAPPY with who you are.
Tomorrow I will post on LoseIt which was the first app I started using. I don't know everything about the app, but I know what I love about it and I'll try to explain/share some of my favorite features and why I think it's so convenient. I'll post on Striiv after. They just updated the app so I'm relearning a few features, but it shouldn't take long.
I leave you with a little Foamy the Squirrel from Ill Will Press. It's rather harsh and lots of swear words, but it does express very well my distaste for crazy diets (Weight Watchers is NOT a fad diet and it has proven effective for so many people although I have no experience with it).
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