I track everything I eat 99% of the time in DailyBurn. Not everyday because I travel a lot and it can be hard on the road, but most days. I am very diligent to measure, keep track, and most importantly write down everything I eat so that I know as close as humanly possible about the number of calories that are going into my body. It was a lot of work at first, but over time it has become much easier and I now have routines and even specific meals that I eat to (more on that in another post) keep the calorie tracking as easy as possible. I have found that it is all about routines 99% of the time and the results will come.

Can I show you some of the evidence of the results? Sure. Here are two pictures – one from February 2008 and one from this past weekend (November 7, 2009). As you can see I am proud to show that I am down significantly in weight and my primary focus has been on eating a much lower number of calories.

Don’t get me wrong, the exercise has been important – especially the body weight exercises I have been doing. I have definitely noticed that I am much more muscular than I have ever been. I am in phase 3 of the 6-month Turbulence Training by Craig Ballantyne. This bodyweight-only exercise program has been kicking my ass.

That being said, I spend most of my energy keeping my calories low. I am not a tall guy (5′ 6) and with my current weight of 148 pounds I have found that keeping my caloric intake to about 1200 – 1500 calories has been working to continue to lose weight. The important thing I have learned is that I do not need as much food as I thought I did. I am still putting on muscle with much less food. I also have been eating less carbs, although that has not been the focus of the diet. I do attribute that habit to helping me not feel hungry very often as I strongly believe from personal experience that the more carbs (breads, etc) I eat the hungrier I get.

As I reflect on it, like many others I believe that losing weight was a complex thing of managing proteins, carbs, and fats and then killing myself in the gym. I thought that was the only way to get results. It is much more simple than that – just keep the calories lower and the results will come.

There is a good podcast available now over at the Adonis Lifestyle Blog about how many calories you need if you want to learn more about watching what you eat.

(Photo Credit)

About 1.5 years ago I moved from Canada to Norway on an expatriate assignment with my employer, and have been able to enjoy the benefits of riding my mountain bike to and from work every day. It is a 24 kilometer round trip and takes a combined total of about 60 – 65 minutes. Even with a pretty diligent running program as well, I was only able to take my weight down from around 200 pounds (I didn’t actually measure because I was in denial) to 170 pounds. This weight dropped really quickly, but I was not able to break that 170 pound barrier. I realised that I had to do something different to break that “plateau”.

Using blogs like the ones mentioned above, it was clear that what is more important than all the cardio and exercise in the world was the food I put in my stomach. More importantly, it was all about calories and keeping them LOW. In fact, I have been able to cut about 10 pounds since realizing how important calories are to the weight loss and fitness equation.

Being the digitally focused guy that I am, I knew I needed to find a tool that would help me keep track of those calories electronically. At first I was using an iPhone app called Tap & Track. It was doing the job, especially because it was the only iPhone app I found that didn’t require a Wi-Fi connection to get food details. However, over time it was clear that the app was not enough as I wanted more functionality in the tracking of my food intake.

In early March, even before I seriously started tracking calories I signed up for a site called Gyminee. I used it only to try it and keep track of my biking and running progress. I gave up using it because it was really not doing anything for me at that time. As I realised that Tap and Track was not working as well as I wanted, I remembered Gyminee and reading somewhere that they had changed their name to Daily Burn and had also started to include nutritional tracking. This has been a godsend and has allowed me to diligently and accurately track exactly how many calories, carbs, and proteins I consume each and every day. The overall results have been very positive. Here is a chart from Daily Burn that shows my progress:

Here is some details on how the nutrition details I track look. In my opinion, the best part is that I can set limits (high and low) and the system alerts me to when I am in our outside of this limits. The only way to really know how much you eat is to really track it. How I track it will be a topic of another post.

I also have the companion app on my iTouch so I am able to be mobile with the tracking. So far so good on this weight loss digital tool. I will continue to let you know how it goes.