Fitbit as a weight management tool

[rtsteiner]

I made up a system a few years ago for using fitbit as a weight management tool which seems to be working well for me and which I thought I'd post something about in case others want to do something like it. A few years ago, I moved to a place where alcohol was hard to come by, so I gave it up and lost about 60 lbs (along with following a lot of other weight loss techniques such as keeping a food journal, minimizing my intake of refined carbs, etc). When I moved back to the US, I wanted to go back to drinking alcohol and eating carbs but without gaining a lot of weight back. Enter fitbit....

After using my fitbit flex to track my activity for over a year while living abroad, I decided to actually try to do something with the data. So I develop a system in which I balance my exercise (measured in miles I moved per day) with the amount of bad-for-me food I was eating. I roughly estimate that moving 1 mile burned about 100 calories, so I took note of all the of the bad-for-me foods (which include bread, potatoes, rice, alcohol of any kind, sugars, etc) and balanced my intake of those foods with the distance I walked. I considered every 100 calories of bad-for-me food to be 1 point that I lost, and every mile I moved according to my fitbit to be 1 point that I gained. In terms of alcohol, this works out roughly so that a beer = 3 points lost, a glass of wine = 2 points lost, and hard alcohol = 1 point lost per 2 oz shot, and for other foods I look up the calorie count and assign points accordingly (so two 4 in diameter tortillas that have about 50 calories each = 1 point lost). Then I make sure I am working out enough to balance out all of the bad-for-me foods I eat. I have been doing it for almost two years and am very happy with the results. I seeme

[professorpete]

Great job and I admire the effort.  I think I try to keep in mind when I eat something that isn't healthy I need to move a lot more.  A whole lot more.  But you have really organized this.  I'm glad it's working for you. Sometimes I find I eat "junk" and tell myself to just increase the exercise, but for me it ends up being an out for eating more things that aren't healthy.  

[emili]

For most the rule is you can't outrun a poor diet. One day of course isn't going to ruin your efforts, but if one day turns to two and so on- well you ruin your effort. And is it worth it? There isn't a dessert, food or drink that is worth it to me. It's too hard to lose and too easy to gain. I stay away from easy 😉 

[USAF-Larry]

So true @emili, so true!