The D.I.R.T. on Lose It!

Another D.I.R.T. review…

I’ve been using Lose It! religiously since November 2013, about 16 months. I’m writing the review after my son suggested trying another app to track calories, weight and exercise. I refused, for the simple reason that I had too much time and data invested in this one.

Lose It! first came to my attention quite a while ago when my cousin gave me a demo. I was intrigued so gave it a try. With good intentions, I started tracking my food intake but quickly lost interest. Every day I was in the red… kind of depressing. Back then, I wasn’t exercising or trying to lose weight. Like the first time I quit smoking and failed, I just wasn’t ready.

A year or so later, I got more serious about exercising and started to lose a little weight. I was down to 188 pounds when I rediscovered Lose It! Here’s their mission:

Lose It! is designed with one goal – to help you lose weight in a healthy, sustainable way. No magic pills, no crazy diets – just a simple, easy-to-use program that helps you stay in your calorie budget.

I started tracking my weight and calorie intake regularly, rarely missing a day. I use the app exclusively because of it’s convenience but have visited the web page from time-to-time. However, I’m not going to review the app or the website. I’ll be reviewing the concept.

Personally, I like the tool for it’s shame factor. If the graph above was trending upwards, I’m sure I would have given up long ago. One of the daily graphs shows your calorie intake, turns red if you exceed your goal. When the graph comes close to approaching the red zone, I’ll thinks about forgetting the burger and have a salad. It doesn’t always work but it certainly makes me think. I reached my weight goal of 175 pounds a few months ago. It goes up and down but generally hovers around that mark. I don’t watch what I eat and will eat just about anything… except pickled beets and tripe.

The exercise portion of the tool calculates calories burned for just about every activity, even snow shovelling (comes in handy up here in frigid Ontario). I compared the calories burned in the tool, over a six month period, against my heart rate monitor. The results were very close, so close that I don’t bother with the heart rate monitor unless I’m doing something new.

A couple months ago I decided to purchase the premium plan, which gives you quite a bit more information and more importantly, the ability to set goals. I plan to set goals for hydration, fat and sodium intake. The tool shamed me into exercising more, my son is shaming me into setting some healthy eating habits.

• Hydration: 101oz is recommended for men, increase if you exercise on a regular basis. My goal is 120%.
• Fat: 20% to 35% range is recommended. I trend closer to 40% so have quite a bit of work to do on this one.
• Sodium: 1500mg is the recommendation for men over 40… that’s me. This one will be tough.

You’ll find yourself lying every once in a while but try your best not to. The tool, any tool, is only as good as the data that gets entered. The graph above is my actual weight, measured every morning after breakfast. I check myself at the gym regularly for comparison.

It’s not easy to keep up with a tool like this. If you can fit it into a daily routine it will be much easier. I was away from home this past week and wasn’t able to weigh myself… felt a little guilty. One bit of advice, don’t set too many goals. Pick a few, reach them, then add more.

If you have the will power to stick with it this tool, you’ll succeed in your goal… I’m proof.