"What's your secret...diet, exercise, both?"

Niraj asked the question above. 

Here's what I'm doing.

1. I track my calories every day, entering what I eat on livestrong.com/myplate/ My current limit is 1850 calories per day. Some days I might only get up to 1600 or so. Occasionally I might go slightly over. 

2. I try not to take any calories after 7pm. I give the kid a bath and that's it. 

3. I track my weight every week. I chart it on livestrong and post it here. I also weigh myself every day because I look forward to it. I like to see progress. But I don't beat myself up if there's no progress. Realistic is 1-2 pounds a week. Since my scale is in half-pound increments, there's not going to be movement every day. Some days it goes up. 

The key is staying with it. 

That's pretty much it. There are other good things. I'd like to build muscle to boost my fat-burning capacity, but haven't been to our rec center to work out. I've done a few sets of push-ups here and there, but nothing dramatic. Drinking more water and eating more fruits/vegetables will make it easier to stick to a daily calorie goal, but it's not like I need to eat broccoli to lose weight. 

I'm starting at 1850 per day, knowing that as I progress, I will likely have to lower my calorie intake. I think when I got down to 160 pounds, I was eating around 1400-1500 a day. And at some point I might have to do some cardio or muscle-building to get over a plateau, but I'll take that as it comes.