Tall tales, truth and my twitter diet

New York: I want to feel healthy. I have a plan. I'll outline it later today.

My first goal is, I hope, a realistic one: to lose 25 pounds in 25 weeks, by the time I turn 25, on September 3. -- Two tweets on March 2, 2010.

Thus began a very personal and yet public project -- losing weight.

I knew that I could not diet alone; I needed the help of a cheering section. But rather than write a blog, keep a diary or join Weight Watchers, I decided to use Twitter. I thought it would make me more accountable, because I could record everything I ate instantly. And because Twitter posts are automatically pushed to each person who subscribes to them, an audience -- of friends or strangers -- can follow along.

It's easy to deride people like me who "diet and tell," as one Web site described the trend earlier this year. Or, for that matter, those who post every day about their job searches, debt loads or love lives. This impulse to share every minute detail of life is often ridiculed as a narcissistic trait of my generation -- the millennials, who are generally in their 20s.

But I quickly learned that narcissism wasn't really the problem with my Twitter diet account, twitter.com/brianstelter25. Truth telling was.

Last night: asparagus sted of fries, but too much alcohol. Today: fruit; then sushi, little bit of soy sauce, 1 cookie sted of usual 3. -- 2:16 pm, March 4.

I was going to account honestly for every ounce. Eat, tweet; eat, tweet. But my post on Day 2 disguised a long night of drinking, and I didn't mention a late-night slice of pizza.

Within days, I stopped posting the daily log of bites and sips. I disappeared from the account for almost a week at a time.

Went to the gym this morning. First time in four years. Was tough, but better than I expected. -- 1:17 pm, April 19.

But I came back each time because I was gradually accumulating an audience.

"Great goal!" replied @monitalan, one of the 600 people who eventually signed up for my daily updates. "We'll be your support group."

Monday, started w/McD's, cinnamon melts and hash brown, 600 cals/44% of day's fat -- awful, and made me feel ill. -- 6:11 pm, April 28.

Until last month, I sometimes ordered 2 melts, 2 hash browns -- 88% of day's fat, 100% of saturated fat --for breakfast. Disturbing. -- 6:12 pm, April 28.

These posts were not always easy to write. I started counting calories rigorously and yearned to share even more. The fast food industry had stacked the deck against ordinary consumers, and I thought that talking about this in public was a corrective, if a slight one.

But I still wouldn't reveal everything -- like my weight. I was a long way from being Drew Magary, a blogger for Deadspin, who gained attention late last year for what he called the "Public Humiliation Diet." He posted his weight on Twitter every day, and lost 60 pounds in five months that way.

On Monday I think I'll be making a big announcement here. -- 4:37 pm, May 1

In exactly two months, I have dropped 25 pounds. Now, my new goal: to lose 25 more pounds by my 25th birthday, 9/3. -- 11:25 am, May 3.

At last, something to crow about. As I continued to announce a certain amount of lost weight, the replies from followers were motivation enough to lose more, a reinforcing cycle. "Am so proud of you!," @vickielyna wrote that day. "Nice taking it in stages. Great job my friend."

I've never met Victoria Alameda, a 56-year-old woman living in Sunnyvale, Calif, but she became my loudest supporter. When we spoke by phone for the first time recently, she recalled some of my earliest posts, like the tough time I had avoiding Dunkin' Donuts in March. I ordered one chocolate frosted donut. In the past, I wrote bashfully, I would have ordered and eaten three. "When I read that, I was like, 'Yes!' This guy's got a chance," she said.

Then she mentioned, casually, "By the way, I've lost 50 pounds along with you."

One of my younger brothers started using Twitter to track his weight loss, too.

He echoed what friends had told me in person: that my daily Twitter updates about salads and fat-free yogurts and late-night gym trips were changing their habits, as well. "You're ruining pastries for me with this Twitter feed, Bri," @andrearosen wrote to me in May, after I regretted a highly caloric Starbucks order.

I started this Twitter feed at 270 pounds. I think I maxed out between 275 and 280. But now I'm at 220. I'd like to be under 200. -- 8:47 am, June 28.

Finally, I felt comfortable publishing my starting weight. "I'm embarrassed by it," I added that day. "But now I feel comfortable, because I know I'm never going back."

Today, I'm under the 200-pound mark, and by Sept. 3 I'll have lost 75 pounds. I'm already thinking ahead to the fall, when I'll have to learn how to maintain my new size. I have ordered a specially made scale that posts its results onto Twitter every week. It will confess -- or brag -- for me automatically.