Starting weight: 225 pounds
Current weight: 221 pounds
At this rate, I will disappear entirely in: January, 2011
(So I better remember to start eating more before then)

After reading friend and fellow fitness-blogger Cindy’s blog, and seeing her approach of just treating calories like a budget, I decided to ditch Weight Watchers in favor of FitDay. For a couple of reasons. First (and let’s make it clear — this is the most important reason) the goddamn puffy icon. The GODDAMN PUFFY ICON that you see when you’ve gained weight. Fuck you, puffy icon. In my professional life, I’ve crossed paths with a member of the Weight Watchers Points Plan development team (puffy icon aside, the Points plan online is one of the biggest, most robust, and highly complex rich internet applications out there), and I had the incredibly cathartic experience of asking what the hell the deal is with the G. puffy icon.

“Oh yeah,” she said, “That. That came up at every meeting, but it was never the top of the list.”

Yeah, well, you know what? Maybe it will be now, when this very blog post becomes the number one Google result for “Weight watchers goddamn puffy icon.” Stupid godammn fucking puffy icon.

(Boy, when my kid(s) start searching my blog for profanity in about eight years or whatever, this is the post they’re gonna find. Hi there, Lydia! Remember when daddy was fat? Yeah, and he swore a lot, too! Mention this blog post with redemption code “goddamn puffy icon” and get a one-time coupon for a real fruit smoothie! Let’s take our hoverboards there, okay?)

Anyhow. The gym is going well, I took two slow 30′ runs over the weekend — one on a treadmill, one with the Cruel Princess of “Faster, Daddy! Faster!” in her jog stroller — and I’m now up to fifteen minutes at a 10:00 pace on the treadmill. I’m waking up earlier, going to bed without feeling exhausted, and cartoon bluebirds alight on my finger as I wait for the train. So I’m hoping that I can keep this up, because it’s working out pretty well. My goal is to s-l-o-w-l-y get up to 30:00 at a ten-minute pace four times a week, then hold that for at least a couple of months before I start investing in singlets.

Oh yeah, and I’m actually really enjoying FitDay. Since it runs locally, I don’t have to look at a spinny for two seconds every time I type in “coffee, cream, sugar [submit].” WW’s “points” are very valuable in simplifying the whole nutritional voodoo that goes on behind the scenes, but after a bunch of years of kinda-sorta paying attention to what I eat, the behind-the-scenes chemistry is not what’s keeping me from eating those delicious brownies. In fact, NOTHING was keeping me from eating those delicious brownies last night, which means that I’m now looking at my calorie balance for yesterday, and I’m not seeing the deficit I need. Oh, well, I’m in it for the long haul, and at least FitDay’s bar charts don’t have PUFFY BEMUSED SMILES.