Wi-Fi scale from Withings tweets your weight
Call it the “Twitter Diet” if you will, but I’m Tweeting my weight (follow @NoBellyPrize) as a way of a publicly declaring that I’m serious about dropping down to 165 and staying there. A better term, however, might be “Social Media Diet” because I’m also posting my progress on Facebook.
I’m also blogging about the process at NoBellyPrize.com.
The reason I do this is because it really helps to have someone watching over my shoulder while I’m trying to get in shape. During previous diets I’ve paid counselors or nutritionists to do that and provide advice. I realized a long time ago, though, that I don’t need advice. What I need is willpower and having someone follow my progress is a big help. With technology, now I have lots of people helping me.
To automate the process, I just borrowed a scale from Withings that automatically Tweets my weight whenever I step on it. I worry a bit about spamming all my Twitter followers with these automatic reports which is why I set up a separate account. I’ll occasionally Tweet my progress on my main account (@LarryMagid) but not every time I get on the scale.
And, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m also using Lose It to track everything I eat and all my exercise which helps a lot. Lose It is both a web site and iPhone App which allows you to enter and view information from either platform. And, like my new scale, it can be configured to Tweet your progress and post it to Facebook.
And I’m not the only technology journalist on the path. After Tweeting about my diet this morning, I got a Tweet from my friend (and former co-author) Dwight Silverman who is also using Lose It and also Tweeting his progress (@50PoundsbyJune). Dwight has written a column about it at the Houston Chronicle. If Dwight and I succeed, not only will we lose weight but the overcrowded field of technology journalists will be reduced by about half a person — assuming you measure by weight and not actual units.
Larry Magid is a technology journalist and an Internet safety advocate. He serves as on-air technology analyst for CBS News, is co-director of ConnectSafely.org and founder of SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com. He also writes columns that appear on CNET News, CBSNews.com, Huffington Post and the San Jose Mercury News.
His technology reports can be heard daily on CBS News and CBS affiliates throughout the U.S. and he has a daily tech segment on KCBS radio in San Francisco. He’s a regular contributor to BBC World Service and an occasional guest on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation. He is often called upon for commentary by CBS television news, CNN and Fox News and has appeared on the CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, the Today Show and CBS Early Show. He has also been a frequent contributor to the New York Times and was, for 18 years, a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
He has written several books including the best-selling Little PC Book and is co-author (with Anne Collier) of MySpace Unraveled.
Larry served on the Obama Administration’s Online Technology Working Group and the Berkman Center’s Internet Safety Technology Task Force.
