NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

How are you doing on all those New Year's Resolutions? Especially those related to losing weight? Me neither! That is, until I stumbled upon a computer program that is really helping me in the effort.A few years ago I made a serious effort and lost 40 pounds (and then gained 10 back). The main tool I used was recording everything I ate, calculated calories and fat and compared them to desired levels given me by a dietician. It was laborious to do......but it worked!

I accidentally found a new site called THE DAILY PLATE, which does the same thing, but takes most of the tedious work out of it. You establish a weight base, a normal level of exercise activity, pick a weight loss goal or rate, and it calculates your daily allotments in many different catagories of diet elements. It lets you track your water intake against your daily goal. It lets you track your exercise from dozens of different activities. And most importantly, it lets you track your food intake. There are over 120,000 food items in the program's database, and you can add some of your own. You can even establish meals you frequently consume. Thus if you frequently have a half grapefruit, some Cheerios, 1% milk, toast & margarine, and a cup of coffee for breakfast....these can be put into a "meal" and entered into the system with one click!

Entries into the system are very simple and easy. You don't have to look anything up....the program does it for you. It gives you instant readout as to what you've consumed....calories, fat, sodium, protein, carbohydrates, cholesterol, etc. etc......and tells you how much more you can comsume to meet your daily limit. It calculates the number of calories burned by each exercise activity, and gives you a credit in calories for doing the exercise! The program displays graphs of your consumption by individual food component (calories, sodium, etc.) so you can view trends. It allows you to track your weight.

AND ALL OF THIS IS FREE !!! The program allows you to get in contact with others trying to manage their weight, if you want to. Having a "buddy" is a recommended tool in any weight loss or exercise program. For a small fee you can get a "Gold Membership" which provides a lot more graphics, analysis, etc. if you're really into that sort of thing.

If you want to....need to.....have to....lose some weight, you owe it to yourself to check this program out at www.thedailyplate.com