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I'm sure I could write a best-seller with just this title, but instead, I'm going to give away my best secret for free!

The biggest secret I know to losing weight and keeping it off is called meal-tracking.

Seriously. Before I did my weight-loss program, I went out to lunch with a co-worker who was already enrolled in the program. There were appetizers on the table, but I noticed she wasn't touching anything.

I asked her if she couldn't have these yummy things because the program forbade it. She said no - she just didn't want to write it down. I thought that was such a weird answer - I could understand something like "I don't want to gain weight" or "I don't want to disobey the dieticians," but not wanting to write something on a piece of paper? Who cares!

Well, now I know better. Writing it down forces you to be accountable to what you are doing. If you have to write down everything - even the couple of french fries from your kid's Happy Meal (even though you're eating your virtuous salad) - you see how quickly those little bites add up. It's such a simple formula: You have to eat fewer calories than you consume. And I contend that these little bites here and there are a major, insidious cause of weight gain (or failure to lose weight).

So, what do you write? I'm a data freak, so I do calories, fat, carbohydrates, and protein. During my off-season (when I'm not training for the Ironman), I aim for about 1500 calories per day, with 30% from fat, 30% from protein, and 40% from carbs. I'm a bit obsessive; I'd recommend just calories for someone new to meal-tracking.

I highly, highly recommend carrying around The CalorieKing Calorie, Fat, and Carbohydrate Counter. It's a tiny book - it will totally fit into any mom's bag. It helps you make sense of nutrition labels, and also includes tons of restaurant and fast-food meals so you don't have to guess at what's in your dinner. I keep a copy with me, and I also CONSTANTLY use the web site calorieking.com.

I used to actually carry around a meal-tracker. It looked like a checkbook, but had places for me to write down what I ate, when, and what the nutritional breakdown was. I don't do that anymore - it worked for me, but now I use something I like better - the web site FitDay.com. I like it because I'm pretty much near a computer all day - so I can just go online and put in my info for each meal as soon as I eat. On weekends, when I'm out and about, I tend to write down what I'm eating on a scrap of paper and then enter it all in later. And frankly, if I don't, I end up picking at my kids' plates or eating things that *I* don't want to write down! So yes - most of the time, I do write down my indiscretions...such as the 800-calorie bowl of Cold Stone Creamery ice cream I had last night. It told me that for yesterday, I ate more calories than I burned - so today I know I've got to get back on track.

My FitDay journal is public; that means anybody can go check up on me. I am pretty sure no one does, but it's just one more layer of accountability that meal-tracking can offer. I've been writing it all down one way or another for more than three years now; I'm positive it's been a major key to my weight-loss and maintenance success.