Twitter Has Its Uses

Most of the time, 140 characters is enough to express myself. I don’t know if that’s a sad reflection of the depth of my thoughts lately or proof that I’m generally terse. But this morning I found myself wanting to talk more about something I’ve learned. Or to be more accurate, am learning and need more practice with. But first, the background:

In January, my dental hygienist convinced me to buy a Bodybugg. She’s also a Biggest Loser fan, and her gym was having a deal on them, so she bought one and loved it. When we got to talking about the show, she raved about how much she liked it and how well it was working for her. The part that sold me was that it told you how many calories you burned. The key to losing weight is to eat less calories than you burn. I was counting calories, but without knowing how many calories I was burning, it was all guesswork as to how much I should be eating to lose weight. No wonder my hygienist loved it: the information overload is empowering.

My net weight loss so far is 7.5 pounds…I’ve had some really good weeks and some really bad relapses, but most important of all, I feel like I have a good handle on what my body is doing. I’ve learned there is a real disconnect between what my body needs and what my habits have been conditioned to believe my body needs (or wants). For example, Saturday night the family went out for pizza after Hayden’s birthday party. I ate two pieces of pizza. I wasn’t stuffed and my instinct was that I could eat a third. But I didn’t and I wasn’t hungry later and I didn’t crave more once that pizza went into the box to take home. I was okay without that third piece, and some of you will understand how much of an accomplishment that is.

Just knowing what that feels like helps me prevent a binge. That just one (or two) can be enough. Why such a simple concept has to be so difficult...