Tools

Since the majority of this is walking, I'm not relying on much in the way of equipment.  But here's what's been helpful so far.

Shoes:  This will pretty much be a hodgepodge of footwear, because I wear a size 16EEEE shoe and I pretty much have to buy what I can find and afford.  But right now I'm using a New Balance 587 that seems to be working well.  Back pain, foot pain, and blisters are way down from when I started.

Exercise:  I'm adding in some exercise as tolerated.  I've had good success with an old, out of print exercise book called Staying Hard:  The Only Exercise Book You Will Ever Need by Charles Gaines.  He did a lot of work with Arnold  Schwarzenegger in the 70s and 80s. I bought three of them when I found it used, since it's really hard to come by.  It was a big part of the weight I lost in the late 80s to get into the Navy.

I'm tracking my food and weight loss at  The Daily Plate  on Livestrong.com, which is Lance Armstrong's web site.  It's a lot like Weight Watchers online, but free.  I think it's a little less user friendly, but you can't beat the price.  Looking at what you eat every day is essential to keep yourself accountable.  It turns out that before I started doing this I was eating from 5000-8000 calories every day.  I am now at or below 2600, which should cause me to lose about three pounds per week at my current size. That will adjust down as I get smaller.

Cool tracking spreadsheet    We made a Google Document so you can follow with us and see how far we've come.  So far we're at about 3%.