Losing weight and a dress size

As you know I've started using My Fitness Pal.  I started in December 2011 and I'm happy to announce I've lost 9lbs and am already wearing clothes that are a size smaller.

I'm feeling a lot better in myself and my joints are benefitting too.  Obviously the last month has been difficult and I haven't done much exercise but when I have managed to do a bit my joints have felt a little more comfortable.

The only exercise I've been doing is on the Wii.  If I exercise at home I can do a few minutes and then sit down which is a lot better for me than going for a 30 minute walk, which I couldn't do anyway.  It's worked well for me so far, some days I can't do anything and some days I can manage up to 10-15 minutes split up into small manageable chunks.

I find My Fitness Pal easy to use because it has a website (myfitnesspal.com) and an app but the best part is that it's free.  After adding a few details, height/current weight you can add in how much weight you want to lose, either 1 or 2lbs per week 2 lb per week, and it calculates how many calories you should be having each day.  The friends feature is also good as you can help each other along the way.

Adding food into the app is easy as it has a barcode scanner but there is also a search facility, then all you do is you add how much you've had and it tells you how many calories is it in.  The only problem with that is that due to the website being American people have put things in lbs, oz, grams, cups, all sorts of different measurements so I've also downloaded a free converter app so I know how much I'm having.  And no I haven't got a clue how big a cup is!  People also put calorie values that are totally wrong, either too much or too little so you have to double check.

The app also shows your projected weight loss if you continue eat like today, for instance if I've eaten 1350 calories it tells me 'if everyday were like today you will weigh so many lbs in 5 weeks'. I think this is good because it gives me something to aim for and doesn't leave me disheartened.

So will I continue to lose weight? Well I certainly want too so watch this space and see!