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So, back on the weight loss trail again now that I am feeling well enough to cook and Glastonbury is out of the way. I'm trying to decide how systematic to be about it this time around. I've had sucess and failures both ways before so I could go either way.
In principle I like having a counter or target to use. I like online food planners and trackers but I also find them frustrating. Because I cook for myself so much I have to enter all the ingredients and some of the sites I've tried are not so good on generics either - looking for chicken breast can get you a lot of Breaded Chicken Breast meals but not always the straight forward ingredient. If the site has a recipies feature then that's pretty good because I do have a core of tried and trusteds that cut down on this problem but it's still not nearly as easy as it would be if I just ate ready meals.
Also, close though it may be, I'm not actually on the computer all the time. Ideally I'd like to be able to update the tracker thing through my mobile phone but surprisingly few places I've looked at offer this. I did trial one but it had the problem with not having many generics in it's food list (although it did have a lookup by barcode for products, which I thought was pretty neat). At the very least, it would be nice if the website was light weight enough to use on the go - that was where Weightwatchers online fell down for me - it was a pretty poorly designed site, which was unfortunate because otherwise it was offering a good service. The other problem with most of the tracker sites I've tried is that they tend to have quite inflexible targets. Again, the weightwatchers one was good here but most of the others I tried wouldn't even let you carry over between days.
Then there's the clubs. Now this is fine in principle. I can quite agree that weightloss is easier if you've got someone to do it with - you can support each other, share good ideas, even police each other if that's what works for you. In practice however, I have never managed to meet anyone even remotely like me at a slimming club. I used to go to a lunchtime weight watchers meeting and it was full of old women and young mums with young babies. All nice enough but facing completely different weight loss challenges to me. As a support group it just didn't really work for me, although I did get some good ideas from the hand outs. Still, I am drawn to the idea of a support group. Anyone know any good ones? Want to form one perhaps even?
Overall, having written this, I think I like the idea of having a structure, but I don't know where to get one that'll work long term for me. Any recommendations? I only actually tried out a couple of online systems before getting discouraged and moving on so there's probably loads out there I haven't seen.
In principle I like having a counter or target to use. I like online food planners and trackers but I also find them frustrating. Because I cook for myself so much I have to enter all the ingredients and some of the sites I've tried are not so good on generics either - looking for chicken breast can get you a lot of Breaded Chicken Breast meals but not always the straight forward ingredient. If the site has a recipies feature then that's pretty good because I do have a core of tried and trusteds that cut down on this problem but it's still not nearly as easy as it would be if I just ate ready meals.
Also, close though it may be, I'm not actually on the computer all the time. Ideally I'd like to be able to update the tracker thing through my mobile phone but surprisingly few places I've looked at offer this. I did trial one but it had the problem with not having many generics in it's food list (although it did have a lookup by barcode for products, which I thought was pretty neat). At the very least, it would be nice if the website was light weight enough to use on the go - that was where Weightwatchers online fell down for me - it was a pretty poorly designed site, which was unfortunate because otherwise it was offering a good service. The other problem with most of the tracker sites I've tried is that they tend to have quite inflexible targets. Again, the weightwatchers one was good here but most of the others I tried wouldn't even let you carry over between days.
Then there's the clubs. Now this is fine in principle. I can quite agree that weightloss is easier if you've got someone to do it with - you can support each other, share good ideas, even police each other if that's what works for you. In practice however, I have never managed to meet anyone even remotely like me at a slimming club. I used to go to a lunchtime weight watchers meeting and it was full of old women and young mums with young babies. All nice enough but facing completely different weight loss challenges to me. As a support group it just didn't really work for me, although I did get some good ideas from the hand outs. Still, I am drawn to the idea of a support group. Anyone know any good ones? Want to form one perhaps even?
Overall, having written this, I think I like the idea of having a structure, but I don't know where to get one that'll work long term for me. Any recommendations? I only actually tried out a couple of online systems before getting discouraged and moving on so there's probably loads out there I haven't seen.
