I haven't re-set my cookie. That's 'cause I'm just plain lazy.

I started a get-fit kick last year on the Spring Equinox, when I weighed about 210 pounds and my feet hurt so much from arthritis that I had to buy a pair of orthotics ($400) just to walk downstairs without yelping.

This morning I weighed 160 pounds, and I have about 10 or 15 more to go. My feet don't hurt any more.

I did it by counting calories using this food database and web-based journal, and drastically increasing the amount of exercise I do. I started out walking to and from work every day -- one mile each way, measured using the pedometer function at Google Maps -- and trotting gently on a treadmill at the gym near my office. By the end of April, I was working out with weights twice a week at the gym, and walking outside ("streetwalking", I call it) up to four miles a stretch three times a week. By the end of the summer, I was routinely walking five to seven miles at a time, three times a week, on the path that runs along the east bank of the Rideau River, and working out at the gym three times a week. The river path is off-limits at this time of year, so now I do the cardio component on an elliptical cross-trainer at the gym five days a week, and weights three days a week.

The only clothes I can wear now that I was wearing at this time last year? Socks.