Last fall Mel and I started doing a Biggest Loser weight loss challenge with some friends. Mel’s pretty skinny to begin with, and I’m not grossly overweight, but we both had some pounds we wanted to shed. It started out great – we were both losing a little bit at a time, but the progress was definite. Then, as could be expected when making lifestyle changes, we both dropped off and kind of plateaued. Hourray for sticking with things! ಠ_ಠ

Fast forward to this spring when the challenge ended. The winner ended up dropping over 70 pounds – holy crap! – and his wife came in being close to 50 pounds lighter! Unfortunately, I ended up right around where I started, with the last month or two really sliding downhill.

All is not lost, however. I started learning about the paleo lifestyle and read through most of The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. Shortly thereafter I discovered reddit, and, amidst all the cat photos and memes, I found r/paleo. (All these years I thought it was just another digg.com.) It’s also worth noting I just lost 20+ minutes by visiting the home page of reddit, twice. You’ve been warned.

I’m still uncertain on paleo as a whole, though. It *sounds* fantastic, but I’ve been really struggling to adopt it, though I have incorporated things here and there over the months. At the vest least, it’s gotten me to look at my carb intake a lot more (that’s not to say I’m always disciplined when it comes to avoiding the bad choices still) and to realize that fat *is* even more important in your diet than I once thought. I’ll keep making gradual progress and see if it’s something I want to incorporate fully into my life.

So, paleo principals in mind, today I started logging on Lose It! again. Seeing what I’m taking in on a daily basis was a huge boon when trying to curb my poor eating habits last fall, and by doing it again – coupled with riding my bike more frequently and doing some core training – there’s no reason I can’t get into the shape I want to be (which is slightly less round, thankyouverymuch) over the course of summer. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass logging a bunch of stuff – especially if it’s not as simple as scanning a barcode or two – but it’s even more of a pain in the ass being overweight and out of shape.