This cute little thing is called the Fitbit. You wear it like a pedometer but it estimates how many calories you burn, the number of steps you have taken, and has a cute little flower that grows as you complete more activity throughout the day. It also keeps track of your sleep (you wear it on your wrist at night) and shows your sleep activity throughout the night. It syncs with it's base and uploads all the information onto the online "dashboard". I have already entered the food I will eat throughout the week, and as I complete my activities (strength training, walking, exercise bike, etc) it will let me know how many calories I've burned, how many I've eaten, etc. I LOVE little gadgets like this-so I'm pretty sure it will be a good motivator for me. It also gives you little badges (you taken 10,000 steps today, you've climbed 50 flights of stairs, etc).
The next tool I'll use is the spark people website. I have used this in the past with great success. There are some fantastic recipes on the sparkrecipe website and you can sync them right into your meal planning for spark people. It's loaded with tips, tricks, advice, encouragement and lets you set up teams to keep each other motivated. I did all my original menu planning on here and then copied the data into the fitbit dashboard online (I know, a little redundant but since fitbit is new to me, I want to make sure the calories, etc end up the same on both. My fitbit will also sync all my data to sparkpeople so I can see my progress there too.
The final piece of my plan is the website diet bet. You create a team of people who each pay money into an online pot (you actually type in your credit/debit card info and they deduct the money). Whoever loses 4% of their weight gets to split the pot (so if two people lose 4%, they split the money). The money is then deposited into your paypal account if you win. The thing I really like about this tool is that I have to actually put money out there (money I don't really have). I know that I will work hard to keep my money and even make a little more (if I win). We are putting up $20 bets so the pot will only be set at $80-but that is enough for a few new clothes later on!
So that is a summary of the plan!! I am very excited about it and I plan to post some of my activities and results here. I follow through much more if I am held accountable for my goals-so I'm counting on everyone who reads this to criticize my failures and celebrate my successes along with me.
