I admit it, I’m a serial dieter. I’ve tried a few diets in my day to lose some weight but the diets are so strict that you can’t stay on them for very long. I think that I have a normal weight of 220. Even though that is probably 30 pounds over what I should be. Over the last 36 years, that is where by body goes if I eat my normal ways.

About 3 months ago, we booked a trip to Hawaii… SO yeah, I have to lose some weight. I was watching TV one night and browsing the Android app market on my G1 at the same time. I was looking for pedometers to track how far I walk and to see if any had a calorie counter on them. I found 3 apps that got me on my new diet, which have helped me to lose 20 pounds.

I don’t know how my thinking got so screwed up, but I will not drink a normal soda. I hate sugar and carbs and try to eat as much meat as possible. Yet, I’ll drink 4 beers a night and not think twice about it? I blame it on the media,  Atkins craze and slow burn diets.

The first app is aBMI, which is a body mass indicator. This will tell you that you are fat and need to go on a diet. If you already know your fat, skip this step.

The next thing I did was find out how many calories I need to maintain my weight at 190 pounds. I thought there was an app for this, but I can’t find it… So I just do a Google search for “How many calories to lose weight calculator”. Brings up a ton of sites that have calculators for this. They all seem to have different calculations so feel free to choose the one that fits your needs.

Since about 3,500 calories equals a pound, I need to cut down on my caloric intake and add some exercise to my day to lose weight. My goal is to eat less then 1,500 calories a day, and try to exercise and lose another 500-1,000 calories per day.

The next app I download for the G1 is awesome. It’s called CalorieCounter and tells you how many calories are in the food you eat. It goes way beyond just hitting generic food. You can find menu items from pretty much every major restaurant like TGIF, and Burger King. This app also goes into all food brands including generic store brands. It has everything. One thing I wish it had was a way to combine foods and make a custom food item like a sandwich. It will let you save foods you eat a lot, but doesn’t let you combine foods to easily add to your daily intake.

My plan is to eat small meals that are 300 calories each. So I can have 5 meals a day. Egg white and toast in the morning. Tuna sandwich for lunch… it is actually very easy to eat this way. I’m not hungry all day and I don’t get sleepy from large meals. Since I do go to bed really late at night, I seem to need a snack at around 10PM… I usually grab a banana or something (100 calories)

I look up one of my favorites, a foot long meatball sandwich from Subway… 1,600 calories, WOW

For the exercise, I want to see how many calories I burn. I download Cardio Trainer to map out where I bike, run, or walk and see how many calories I burn. Another really good program. Uses the GPS very well. Even when I don’t have a connection to the phone it still tracks my location. I mountain bike in the Oakland hills all the time and there is really spotty reception. I think the calories burned is off a little from other calculators I found on the internet. You can choose what activity you are doing, but I think biking on this app, is roadbiking, not mountainbiking.

I don’t use them everyday, anymore. I used them to change my thinking about dieting and food intake. Of course, the apps really had nothing to do with it. I could have done the same thing by reading a book or searching the internet, but with all the junk and bad information out there it’s hard to get your head on straight. Forget about all meat diets from the 4 hour work week. Forget about fats, carbs, sugar, etc…

1. Find out how many calories it takes to maintain the weight you want to be at
2. lower your calorie intake and exercise more
3. be steady and it’s easy to maintain.