My previous attempt at losing weight was so tenuous that, when the body fat percentage scale broke about 3.5 months in, I allowed the event to spin me into a devil-may-care attitude that — don’t act too shocked — eventually ballooned me right back to where I started a year ago.

Such is life. Well, I have a new scale, a new year, and new motivation: I’m one of the speakers at Block Party, the only North American demoparty in 2007 and I would really not like to look like the comic-book guy on The Simpsons when I’m up there. I’ll be terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought anyway; I don’t need my appearance adding to the anxiety.

So this new body fat scale is… newer, which means it has a few more features. It takes sex into account (type, not frequency) as well as height, which means in addition to my weight and body fat percentage, I can view “total percentage of body water” and “general health index”. The percentage of body water is mostly useless (the scale claims 80% accuracy, but more importantly it doesn’t factor into my weight loss program), but the general health index is cute.

So here’s how we measure up on week one:

• weight: 237 lbs
• body fat percentage: 28.0 %
• health index: fatty fatty

Okay, so the actual “health index” text reads “obese”, but I thought I’d have a little fun.