No Snacks For You

English: Snack Machine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other day, I was browsing through some of email news alerts that I subscribe to at work.  These alerts are usually related to the retail industry, with a heavy emphasis on the convenience store industry.  I was going to delete most of the emails, but one of the articles caught my eye and I had to check it out further.

The article was about a new vending machine that they have developed in Europe.  This vending machine uses facial recognition and can detect your age, build, and mood.  It will then go through a series of calculations, including past purchases, before the machine decides whether or not to allow you to complete the purchase.  So if you are stress eating your 4th Snickers bar of the day, good luck.  It also has the capability to tie into your medical records in the approval process.

This disturbs me on so many levels.  I know junk food is bad for me but sometimes I just need, no, want a Reese's Peanut Butter cup.  The machine doesn't have any idea what I have had to eat that day so how can it make an educated guess as to whether or not to sell me the product?  I might not even be buying the product for me.  Perhaps my son or a friend is with me and I am treating them to a snack.

Let's also talk about the fact that the machine has the potential to tie into my medical records.  That just blows my mind.  There are somethings that nobody should have access and medical records is one of those.  That info should only be accessible by me, my doctor, and my insurer.  I would not trust that the info would be safe from other eyes that have no business seeing it.

Of course my geeky side thinks that the technology is very neat.  However, that doesn't override in the least the objections I would have about it.  Way too much Big Brother for my liking.  I'd like to know what others think about it.  Would you want a soulless machine to deny you a snack because it doesn't like the look on your face when you try to make the purchase or would you like a machine making decisions for you?

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Another Goal Met

Funny Smile You Are Losing Weight Fitness Center Sign (Photo credits: www.mydoorsign.com)

There is power in knowledge.  The more information that one has at their disposal, the better decisions they are able to make.  It is with this in mind that I entered my most recent venture to get my weight down to a healthy level.  For the past 10 weeks, I have faithfully been utilizing the MyFitnessPal app on my phone and using their website.

When I signed up with MFP, I entered my height and weight, my goal weight, and how many pounds I wanted to lose each week.  This gave me a daily calorie goal that I would need to consume each day to reach my goal.  They have a massive database of nutritional information.  With my phone, I am able to scan a products UPC bar code and enter the calories into my daily diary.

Another thing that has helped me this time is that I also decided to take advantage of the community of users available at MyFitnessPal.  I felt that having "friends" in the community would help keep me motivated and accountable.  I also try to regularly go to the message boards and participate.  It has helped a lot.  It also helps that I have my wife and friends at work also utilizing the app.

When I started using MFP, in addition to setting an overall weight loss goal of 60 pounds, I decided to set some mini goals for myself. I figured that if I only set an overall loss of 60 pounds that I might feel like it was too daunting a task and lose motivation. By having multiple goals, I could stay motivated by having a more easily attainable goal in front of me.

I officially started my weight loss quest at 230 pounds. That gave me a BMI of 33 which was in the obese range. My first goal was to get out of the obese range and get my BMI under 30. I reached that goal exactly one month ago. I weighted 209 at the time.

The second goal was to get my weight under 200 pounds. It has been a long time since I have stepped on a scale and not see the weight start with a 2. To be honest, I am not sure how long it has been since I have been under 200 pounds, but know it has been several years, at least 10 years and maybe closer to 20. This morning, I stepped on the scale and it read 198.5 pounds.

Originally, I was going to have 180 pound as my next goal. Now I am thinking that I am going to break the mini goals into 10 pound increments and set 190 as my next target. My ultimate goal is to get down to 170 pounds which would put my BMI into the healthy range.

Having these mini goals has definitely helped me mentally.  As time has gone on, my weight loss has started to slow a little bit.  Knowing that the next goal isn't as far away as the ultimate goal helps keep me focused.  I also have started to notice a very little bit of definition appearing in my stomach area.  The possibility of actually having close to six pack abs as opposed to a keg is even more motivation.

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