We decided we needed to go on a real, serious, diet. Well, we didn't actually decide. The largeness of our pants sizes convinced us. I've been on a diet my whole life, but I haven't lost anything substantial in a couple of years, and my husband's been taking some time off from the whole diet thing, so we felt like it was time to get back into it.

We looked at several options, but most of them included way too much processed food for our taste, and, while I don't mind having a meal replacement bar or shake periodically, I don't want my entire food intake to consist of a bunch of stuff I can't make myself. Not to mention the fact that we can't afford to live off of those things for too long. Holy crap! They cost twice as much as it would if we went to the health food store and bought all organic everything. Sheesh.

Anyhow, we decided to buy these Body Media devices, and they arrived yesterday. You just wear this armband all of the time and it tells you how many calories you're burning and other things like that. This is what they look like:

Pretty cool, right? Well, they are kind of a pain in the butt to set up, and their food monitoring software is not as good as the free one we've been using, but they are still pretty flipping cool.

It's really awesome to see how many calories you burn in a day, and I'm especially excited to see how many steps I can take in a day. I realize this is a lot of money to spend on a pedometer, but the sleep monitor is really cool, too. It even showed the 45 minutes I spent tossing and turning last night. IT KNOWS WHEN YOU'RE AWAKE.

Creepy.

So I think the sheer gadgetry of it makes it fun and maybe it'll be more like a contest for both of us. Except for the part where all we can eat is stuff that's good for us. That part isn't starting until Monday, so I guess I still have a few days in which to drink and eat the rest of those Girl Scout Cookies in my freezer. And get a hamburger. And have a stuffed sopaipilla.

Like that, except with red chile. I think red chile just doesn't photograph as well as green. It probably looks like someone bled all over the food unless there was enough light in the room. Not that I don't enjoy the green; I'm just going through a red phase right now.

So, yeah, going to track how many calories my body burns and all of that good stuff. We'll see. I'd like to lose a little more weight before jacket-wearing season is over. Jackets just hide so much stuff.

But, still, stuffed sopaipilla. Like, soon.