I met Andy Swan at Lindzonpalooza in San Diego this year. Andy towers over me (he’s 6′ 9″) and I’m always attracted to people who make me (at 6′ 1″) feel short. Among other things, he’s got a super creative blog and is a successful entrepreneur, so we had a great discussion. We also talked about weight loss, which I was focused on because I was squarely in the middle of my Retrofit experience (where I’ve lost a solid 20 pounds in the last six months.) Recently Andy sent me a note saying he’d lost 40 pounds with just Fitbit – I asked him to write a blog post about his story. Here it is – it’s inspiring.

It had been 6 months since my knee surgery where they replaced my busted ACL (wakeboarding).  I hadn’t weighed myself since, but I distinctly remember seeing “299.2″ on the scale in pre-op.  That was a new all-time high, and “300″ seemed really high, even for a guy standing 6 ft 9.  Just as the anesthesia started to kick in I thought to myself…. “well, this could go one of two ways.  Either you get sedentary and fat while your knee heals or you take it as a wake-up call and start kicking ass.”

I decided to start kicking ass.  I woke up from surgery incredibly optimistic and with absolute certainty that the year post-surgery was going to be BETTER than the year prior.  Funny how obstacles can motivate.

Fast-forward 6 months of no official “rehab”, but a lot of weight training and gradual but intense increases in movement. I was as strong as I was 15 years ago as a college basketball player, and my knee felt great.  Ya!

But…. I still felt big.  Too heavy.  Too soft in the middle.  This was a problem.  I’d worked really hard.  Ugh.

Then I went out to San Diego and chatted with Brad Feld.  Naturally, I looked through the companies he had invested in.

Interesting.  The fitbit tracker keeps track of your movement during the day (how?!  Who cares!).  The fitbit scale is wifi-enabled and keeps track of your weight.  Both sync online and work with MyFittnessPal, which I could use to keep track of my calories.

Tracking input.  Tracking output.  Tracking results in “real-time”.  This was a perfect storm of awesome for a guy that really loves excess in all directions– and knows that what gets measured gets done.

I bought both with expedited shipping.

Instant obsession.  3 months later, I still feel completely incomplete if I haven’t burned more calories than I’ve taken in.  I’m fixated on “doing more”.  20,000 steps is a good day.  10 miles moved is awesome.  Partly to lighten up, partly so I can eat more and drink more.  It works.