Well, no weigh-in this week but...

I got me a new toy... ok, ok, Stephanie got me a new toy. ;-)

She bought me the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant Android Smartphone for T Mobile. I have been behind the curve on smart phones because the idea of a "data service I'll never use" rankled. I loathe being told I "have" to do something. I fully expected it to move at 56k modem speeds and generally be too slow and annoying to really use while costing too bloody much!

Fortunately, T Mobile has a $24.99 a month, all you can use data service, so I rationalized my way into the new phone. I mean; I could buy the phone for $500 and use my sim card and not get the data service or I could get the phone for $199 and the data service for $25 a month for 2 years. I bit the bullet and got the cheaper phone with data service, on the principle of it being less up front and I'd get the full capability out of the phone.

All I can say is WOW. I had no idea 3G was this fast. I'm getting 1.5Mb download speeds and 500k upload! From anywhere! And the screen on this thing is a 4” Super AMOLED™ screen, which is AMAZING. That's the one you see on TV playing Avatar... yeah, it looks as good as the theatre, all be it, smaller! The Vibrant combined my phone and PDA and has everything I wanted or needed plus Internet anywhere. In short, this is the BEST TOY EVER.

Week 21... GOAL!

Whew, 37.2 lbs later and I'm at goal. Well, sort of. I weighed in at 204.8 lbs tonight and officially hit my original goal of 205 lbs. I'm going to adjust my calories to hit a good maintenance intake. The aim being to lose very slowly or maintain. If I hit 200 lbs I'm ok with that but I'm not going to work very hard at it! Just NO GAINING, PERIOD though. ;-)

Steph's New Toy

Everyone here should already know that Steph and I have been losing weight together for roughly 5 months now. I'm down 35 lbs and she's down almost 17 lbs. Makes sense, since I'm almost twice her size while she's training for a marathon AND dieting! However, she's harder on herself than about some things than is reasonable in my opinion. Her weight being one of them.

To help her get the best control over her health and nutrition as possible we got her the BodyMedia GoFit. Basically, it's the same as the BodyBugg that you see on The Biggest Loser. The hardware for both is made by BodyMedia but the BodyBugg uses software from 24 Hour Fitness and the GoFit uses software by BodyMedia. Pretty cool gadget. You wear it on your arm and it keeps track of how many calories you burn throughout the day and monitors your sleep efficiency at night.

Aside from the coolness factor though, I think the biggest benefit of the GoFit has been to give Steph a real feeling of being in control of her diet for the first time. She can see how many calories she's burned as she goes, rather than guesstimating. She can see how many steps she has taken during the day so she knows she's getting her exercise. She can finally maintain a calorie deficit without starving or guessing wrong and blowing any deficit she might have had. Even leaving aside all of the real benefits of the device, the change it has made in her attitude has made it worth every penny! O.O

Week 20... yep, 5 months!

Well, I had a better weigh-in this week. I weighed in at 206.8 lbs for a loss of 2.6 lbs. Less than 2 lbs for my official goal of 205 lbs but I'm definitely going to 200 lbs now! I'd like to hit that in 3 weeks but it'll probably be at least 4 which will put the whole process at the 6 month mark. 42 lbs in 6 months wouldn't be too shabby! ;-)