A year ago, I was overweight.

Actually, a more honest statement is, until a few months ago, I had always been overweight. I tried many times since middle school to lose the extra weight, and despite countless attempts I never succeeded losing enough to put myself in the healthy-weight category.

I was married two years ago, and was able to lose 20 pounds before the wedding through dieting. But there I was, one hot August evening last year, eating a microwave pizza and drinking a beer in front of the computer screen having gained back all I lost. Since I transitioned from college to a full-time desk job, I found myself eating more meals from a takeout counter and moving around less. The increase in bad eating and decrease in exercise had started to push me from just being clinically “overweight” to dangerously eyeing the “obese” category.

A year later, I’m writing this article to tell you what I lost — almost 50 pounds — and what I learned: that the most important thing you can do, if you want to lose weight, is to build healthy habits into everyday life. And technology can be a big help doing that.

On that day, on a whim, really, I started running using the Couch to 5K program found at coolrunning.com. (The Auburn-Lewiston YMCA also offers the program, which adds the additional incentive of camaraderie with like-minded people.) The reason why it worked is the program motivated me and gave me structure to build exercise into my daily routine. From there, I found many websites, apps and devices that helped me keep going and accomplish my goals. If you want to lose weight and make a difference in the way you look and feel, here’s some advice on some great technology out there to help you do that:

Chart your progress using an online activity log.

When you start to introduce regular exercise into your life, especially after years of sedentary living, you have to start small. And that’s OK! Don’t be discouraged by putting down 5 or 10 minutes of walking. What will really help to encourage you is to track your progress. You’ll see how much you’re improving. And many sites and apps integrate with Twitter and Facebook, so you can share your progress with others.

Check out: MapMyFitness.com; DailyMile.com* (* indicates Pattie’s pick)

Count calories with an online food diary — and meet other people with body types and goals like yours.

One of my college roommates lost a tremendous amount of weight the year I lived with them. When I asked my friend what his secret was, he told me, “I write down all the calories I eat at The Daily Plate.” You just put in how much of whatever food you ate, and the nutrition information would be calculated for you automatically. They make tracking the calories you take in easy — and it’s totally free.

Don’t worry about limiting your calories at first. Just build the habit of recording everything you put in your mouth, and you’ll naturally think twice about that footlong Italian sandwich at lunch or third beer.

Check out: Livestrong.com (formerly The Daily Plate)*; SparkPeople.com

Find an exercise program.

For me, it was the Couch to 5K, a running and walking plan that took me from running one minute to running for 30 minutes over the course of eight weeks. That hot night in August, I looked up an app for my iPhone for the Couch to 5K program, and then and there, just like that, without much thought or fanfare, got up and started week one, day one of the program.

The great thing about finding a plan is that it gives you a purpose. It gives you a goal. You can feel like you’re actually working toward something, charting progress. There are fewer questions about “am I doing too much?” or “am I not doing enough?” because you have a path to get to some greater goal.

Maybe running isn’t your thing. There are other good exercise programs out there too, such as the Crossfit Workout of the Day, which gives you a few exercises to do that day that fit into a progression. Another program is Hundred Push-ups, where you start doing just a few push-ups and every day you build up to something more.

The key to a good plan is that it starts small and builds in small increments. If you have a smartphone or can download and listen to a podcast, there are plenty of apps out there that can tell you what to do that day, and even tell you when to start and when to stop running.

Check out: Couch to 5K (c25k.com for the app)*; Crossfit Workout of the Day (crossfit.com); Hundred Push-ups (hundredpushups.com/)

Track your distance using a GPS device.

One of the best and easiest ways to start incorporating exercise into your life is walking. When I first moved to Lewiston, my husband and I bought a dog, Scoop. I would take Scoop on long walks exploring the neighborhoods surrounding ours.

If you have a newer smartphone, like the iPhone or a Droid, it probably has a global positioning device built into the phone. There are many apps — some free, some paid — that you can download to track where you’ve been and how long it took you to get there. It adds an element of fun to exercise. You can challenge yourself to walk farther. Or walk faster. You can get a better idea of how far you’ve explored. 

If you don’t have a smart phone with a GPS, there are dedicated watches you can buy. The cost starts at about $100, though you can find them cheaper if you look for used ones on Amazon or eBay. After you’ve developed a routine, and start to get really serious about wanting to know your pace, I’d recommend buying one if you don’t already have a phone that does it. I know people who won’t even go on a run without their Garmin!

If you have a smartphone, check out these apps: Runkeeper (iPhone and Android); MapMyFitness (iPhone, Android and Blackberry); Runmeter* (iPhone only).

Looking to buy a good watch with built-in GPS? Check out: Garmin Forerunner 305* ($199); Nike+ Sportwatch GPS ($199)

Fight boredom with podcasts.

Need to keep entertained through walks or runs? Subscribe to a podcast, which is like a radio show that you can download and listen to any time, usually for free. If you have iTunes, on your computer open up the music store and navigate to the podcasts section. Don’t worry, many of them are free. When you find one you like, you can “subscribe” and iTunes will automatically download new episodes. You can then select them to sync new episodes with your iPhone or iPod when you plug it into your computer. If you have a Droid phone, there is an app called Google Listen that you can use to browse and sync podcasts to it.

Check out podcasts for music: PODRUNNER: Workout Music; Hype Machine Radio

Check out good spoken-word podcasts: This American Life; WNYC’s Radio Lab; The Moth Podcast

Check out podcasts that help you exercise: Couch to 5K (gives you audio cues when to start and stop running); YOGAmazing (a video podcast that guides you through yoga poses)

Make fitness a game.

The easiest way to incorporate fitness into your life is to replace something sedentary that you’re already doing with something active.

When I was getting ready to write this story, a friend introduced me to Diane Crocker, who had lost a noticeable amount of weight.

Two years ago, Diane’s son bought a Wii Fit during a time when he was living at home, unemployed, and had a lot of free time on his hands. “It wasn’t at first for weight loss,” she said. “It was a thing for fun. He would do it, and get a score, and then I would come back the next day and try to beat his score.”

They kept playing for a few months. Diane said she didn’t focus heavily on dieting — maybe cutting back on a few meals and cutting out snacks — but she still went to McDonald’s and Burger King.

“It wasn’t like I strictly dieted,” she said. “It was like, a game.”

Time went on, and she played about 30 minutes a day, every day. When it was time to shed the winter clothes, she realized she had lost a lot of weight — none of her warmer-weather clothes fit.

The reason why it worked for Diane, she said, is because she added a little bit of physical activity into her life and didn’t focus on getting immediate results. “I’ve lost 25 pounds,” she said. “I didn’t try, like, I had to lose five pounds by a certain date. Whenever it came off, it came.”

If you really want to start making a difference in how you feel, you have to start moving. The federal recommendation for adults is at least 30 minutes a day of physical activity, preferably in a block of time at least 10 minutes long.

That doesn’t mean you have to buy into a fitness program or a gym membership or a fancy watch. The problem is that too many people over-think it. Think of things that you already are doing through the day. Is one of those things watching TV? Or sitting in front of a video game console? Or playing video games on the computer? Take 30 minutes of the time you usually spend doing that and switch in a fitness video game.

Playing a Wii Fit game on its own isn’t going to make you look like Jillian Michaels. But it is an easy step to take, and can immediately make a small impact.

Check out: Wii Fit* (*Diane’s pick); Dance Dance Revolution (a video game for many platforms); one of the many games for Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360

The right tool . . .

I don’t know if I would have made this journey when I did if there weren’t the tools out there that made mapping the journey to a healthy lifestyle so easy. In the end, that doesn’t matter — I’m just glad I started, because it has given me the strength to do so much more than I ever could have dreamed of doing a year ago.

My point is, whether you have tried once or tried many times, if you’ve given up, try again. If you focus on building healthy habits, and don’t put pressure on yourself about when you achieve your goals, you’ll find yourself at the finish line sooner than you think.

Music ‘hitness’ to help your fitness

Here are the Top 10 Workout Songs for 2011, based on 15,000 votes cast by subscribers to RunHundred.com, the web’s most heavily-trafficked workout music blog (sorted by beats per minute):

105 BPM: Adele — “Rolling In The Deep” (Jamie XX Shuffle)

122 BPM: Jason Derulo — “Don’t Wanna Go Home”

125 BPM: Katy Perry — “Teenage Dream” (Kaskade Remix)

127 BPM: Deadmau5 — “Sofi Needs A Ladder”

128 BPM: Maroon 5 & Christina Aguilera — “Moves Like Jagger”

129 BPM: Cee Lo Green — “F**k You” (Le Castle Vania Remix)

129 BPM: LMFAO — “Party Rock Anthem”

129 BPM: Pitbull, Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer — “Give Me Everything”

130 BPM: Tiesto, Diplo & Busta Rhymes — “C’mon” (Catch ‘Em By Surprise)

150 BPM: Avril Lavigne — “What The Hell”

To find more workout songs and to hear next month’s contenders, visitors can check out the free database at RunHundred.com. Visitors can browse the song selections by genre, tempo and era to find the music that best fits with their particular workout routine.