I’m the owner/publisher of this blog and you don’t hear directly from me much. That’s about to change.

The inspiration for writing today is that I have gained a little weight and I need to get rid of it! About 30 months ago, I lost 85 pounds. And for the most part, I’ve kept it off. It was a very wonderful and cathartic effort. And I learned a ton about fitness and weight loss. That’s why I started this blog…to pass along what works.

Well, what worked for me was a lot of little things, but I want to share some of the best secrets with you right now.

My first effort when I started losing weight was to hire a professional trainer to come to my house three times a week…at the cost of $2,500 per month. Stupid, I know. But I was serious, and sometimes we equate spending a lot of money with getting serious and the expectation of results. Sometimes it works too.

Not this time. While the workouts were great, I was of the opinion that I could lose all my weight solely by working out and eating a little smarter. My trainer asked me to track my food in a log. That seemed horrifically restricting and like a huge time burden. So I didn’t do it. And over three months of workouts, all I lost was seven pounds and $7,500 from my bank account.

I know you can do the math but that’s nearly $1,100 per pound…at that rate it would have cost me $91,071 for the weight loss I achieved. Fortunately my trainer moved to Texas, and I didn’t find a replacement.

So how’d I lose 80 pounds? I learned to log my food. I created a free account at www.fitday.com and tracked the food I ate and the calories I burned off. It was the perfect motivation I needed. And the pounds came off consistently.

So that’s my number one secret. Measure what you do. I love the saying, “If it’s measured is managed.” If you have some money to spend and you want to spoil yourself in the way you measure your progress, try the Withings scale. You hook it up to the wireless network in your house, and when you weight yourself in the morning it sends the information to an online chart (don’t worry, others don’t see it) or to an iPhone application. It’s great. I have one and I love it.

I also have a Tanita scale that is probably a hair more accurate than the Withings scale, but after months of writing down all my metrics (weight, metabolic rate, body fat percentage, etc.) early in the morning, I opted for the automatic record keeping.

And for the record, I’m not an affiliate for any of these products.

Tune in tomorrow for my other weight loss power secrets.