So how did you lose all that weight, anyway?

Next time someone asks me how I've lost 43 pounds [so far; I'm not done!], I'm going to say one word:

Blogging.

That's right, girls and boys, my big weight-loss secret is that I wrote about it almost every freaking day.

The benefits of journaling are well-documented, not just for losing weight, but for anger management, smoking cessation ... all kinds of unhealthy habits, actually. Keeping a diary or journal is something many people do on a regular basis, and many diarists credit that daily time spent reflecting and writing with much of their emotional stability and serenity.

Most dieters look at journaling as simply recording their daily food consumption. Some add the "who, when, where and why" to the what for even more insight. Me? I'd rather type than write by hand, I've embraced technology rather than fought it and I started reading – and drawing inspiration from – other weight-loss bloggers long before I started improving my health last January.

From a practical standpoint, for the hour or so that I think about and write each post, I'm not eating anything. You can't eat when you're typing. Or keyboarding. Whatever it's called these days.

This kind of writing might be helpful if I was the only one reading it, but my previous attempts at journaling-while-dieting didn't yield the results I've gotten from blogging to the world. At least the little part of the world that stops by to check up on me every day.

Of course, blogging about weight loss makes the blogger accountable, to some degree. I could drop off the face of the blogging world and in no time at all I'd be replaced and forgotten. But every day I put myself out here, I'm aware that you who read are keeping a careful watch on my progress. Only a few of you comment, but sitemeter tells me that many more of you are reading, watching and, I hope, cheering. [Hah! You thought you were anonymous, didn't you? Well, you really are ... sitemeter gives very little away other than location, ISP and referring URLs. You're safe with me!]

So there it is in the proverbial nutshell: Blogging! The new miracle weight-loss secret! While it's not easy or quick, at least it's free.