Fitmodo Diaries: The First Step Is Admitting You Have A Problem

Welcome to the Friday Fitmodo Diaries, where we can all share our fitness journey and the sweet tech we’re using this week. This week: I realise I have a serious problem with a difficult solution.

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Diary

I knew when I got into this challenge that it wasn’t going to be easy. I’d led a sedentary lifestyle for far too long and I’m now paying the price for it with my body.

I don’t mind the tough exercise. If anything it makes me feel good after a long day of sitting in a chair staring at a screen, and it gives me the chance to catch up on my podcasts which I often don’t get time to anymore.

Part of getting fit is eating right, and herein lies my biggest problem. I have an addiction to bad food. When I get sad, stressed, annoyed, bored or vaguely hungry, I snack, and it’s never on good food like trail mix, rice crackers or water. It’s always chocolate, Coke and chips.

It’s so easy to have a crappy day and binge on food, but clearly, that’s not been working for me for the last year, so it’s time for a change.

That change is going to be hard, too, because I know that I’ll have to go cold turkey, otherwise the bad habits will just sneak back into my lifestyle.

I’ve found that the best way to stop myself snacking on awful food so far has been to eliminate my gateway food — the food I have that seems to open the floodgates to my bad snacking habits. For me, that snack is Coke.

Whenever I have Coke, it’s like something whispers in my ear to say ‘why not have a little bit of chocolate with that, g’waaaan!’, and before I know it, I have food regret after a massive dosing of calories, sugar and fat. So I’ve said goodbye to the Coke for good, and I hope to keep it up lest I fall back into my old ways.

My name is Luke Hopewell, and I’m a reformed junk food addict.

Gadget Update

This week I’m testing out how the iPod Nano and Nike Plus go as a fitness tool for tracking not only running and cardio sessions, but also for tracking how much walking I’m doing per day.

It seems a good idea in theory, but it’s ultimately not what the device is meant for, so right now it looks like it’ll leave a lot to be desired.

As far as apps are concerned, I’m hooked on the MyFitnessPal app (iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone), which has a comprehensive database of Australian foods you can log so you know exactly what not to eat when you’re out and about. So far, the best feature is the ability to scan a barcode with your camera and have the app look up the product’s information. Fantastic.

What are your best fitness apps?