No, this is not about politics. I’m talking about something near and dear to my heart – my personal fitness.

I fell off the exercise wagon in May 2007 when I started traveling, visiting friends in SE Asia and the US, and never managed to get back into the program. (My excuse was that it was hard to work out while in a travel status. Lots of truth in that, but still no excuse for doing nothing.) It’s a shame, really, since I’d worked very hard to keep in shape, and my program was quite successful. My gym is still there, as I left it in May 2007, waiting for me.

So last week I started weighing myself every morning, stripped, on the scale. I observed an interesting phenomenon – my weight started dropping, without any changes to my diet, or exercise regimen. I have observed this effect before. The mere act of keeping track of my body weight creates an awareness that is translated into positive results on the scales.

Now I am adding the next layer of discipline. Calorie counting. Don’t panic. I have an Excel spreadsheet that I wrote that does all the boring work for me. So all that I have to do is measure my food intake, meal by meal. I am a data junkie, I admit it. On a simple form, I write down the food weights of everything I consume. Then enter the data into the spreadsheet, and it does the rest. It calculates how many calories I consumed meal by meal, even the breakdown of protein (gms), carbohydrates (gms) and oil (gms). Right now I am solely interested in daily intake of calories. Concerns about body composition can wait, for now. By watching this data, and taking no other action, I expect my weight loss to accelerate noticeably.

There is nothing magic about this. I think it is a subconscious reaction to the data that makes me eat less – I am more mindful of what I am putting into my body. Anyway, in the last 10 days, I have lost 4.4 lbs. That is 1.8% of my body weight. Go figure.

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