Rosanna and I have been talking for some time about consistently working out and eating better. Something that helped us was the following tip: keep a diary of what you eat at the end of each day.

For the diary, we used an app called Lose It!, which is currently free for the iPhone/iPod touch. To make sure our diary was accurate, we used a food scale (the Salter 1450 Digital Nutritional Scale), and weighed ourselves using Wii Fit.

Following Jared’s (of Subway fame) advice from his book, we finally found something we enjoyed doing that was also good for us. To sum up Jared’s advice, he didn’t recommend everyone do the Subway diet (though it doesn’t hurt his livelihood to keep representing Subway); rather, he tried and failed at several diets before he found one he enjoyed enough to stick with. Thus far, Rosanna and I have tried and failed at several diet/workout plans, but currently this setup is something that we have treated more like a game than a duty. For example, I quickly figured out how many calories I needed for my breakfast, and explored what my options were to fill those calories. Lose It! and the food scale made it fun.

So, controlling my diet was the first step towards taking more control of other areas in my life. We started using Lose It! at the beginning of February. I anticipated that I wouldn’t always use it as heavily as I did at the start, because it taught me how to measure proper portions, how to make wise trade-offs (“Should I eat 20 mini-pretzels, or trade in 10 of them for half an apple?”), and forced me out of the “I’m hungry, I’ll find something to eat” mentality that’s easy for me to fall into. I viewed Lose It! and the food scale as a kind of “training wheels” to get me thinking right about food, but I never intended to keep doing it forever. Now, Lose It! and the food scale are more reference tools than a strict daily diary I diligently keep.

Granted, I don’t have a lot of weight to lose, but at 29, I’m noticing my metabolism has definitely started to wane in the past year or so, and it has started to show. I don’t want to wait until the weight is a problem (or causes other problems). I’m investing in my “Health 401k” right now.

Without even intentionally exercising (at all!), I have dropped 12-15lbs. since the beginning of February, and the best thing of all is that I don’t feel like I’ve ever really deprived myself of much. Rosanna has helped tremendously in giving me a desire and hunger for foods to eat on a daily basis that are good for me, and yet we still enjoy our guilty pleasure: splitting a Saturday night after-church Little Caesars’ $5 pepperoni pizza.

What’s amazing to me is how big a difference can be caused by such small — yet consistent — changes.

This has led to other things, like restarting my PushupFu journey, and I’ve added CrunchFu to the mix. I’m not rushing into anything drastic, just a small ten-minute exercise session every day. I’m aiming to refine my core muscles, because once you clean the windows, you gotta show off your product. ;o)

Up to this point, I’ve intentionally kept these details to myself because I wanted to see if I could and would stick with it. I have! So, it feels right to talk about my plans and goals because I’m seeing results. I’m looking forward to reaching my weight-loss goal of 20lbs., and it should happen within the next three weeks. And yes, I’ll blog about it.

I’m just amazed at how changing your diet — or just paying attention to your diet — can have a profound effect on your overall health and vitality. And I’m even more glad that it’s been a road that I could travel on without feeling like I was living an alternative lifestyle on a “diet” that I’ll “get off of” once I meet my goals. And we all know where that can lead us… right back to where we started (and then some)!

So here’s to making little, measured, consistent, and intentional changes.