I’m fat.

I stepped on the scale this morning and it appears I have once again eclipsed the magical 300-pound mark. How embarrassing.

It’s time to prioritize my health instead of work, social networking, education and other things I’ve been using as excuses. Now, how can I trick myself into believing a healthy exercise regimen and sensible diet are fun? The answer for me is, of course, to figure out a way to geek out while accomplishing these goals.

Geocaching
I’m pretty sure Geocaching was invented to trick geeks into leaving their computer terminals to go for a walk in the woods. The premise: a real-life treasure hunt for people with GPS devices. Go to Geocaching.com to find info, including GPS coordinates, of the cache you want to find. Then, just navigate to the treasure. A lot of caches are in urban parks and public property, but the most challenging caches, with the best booty, are often located off hiking trails deep in the woods.

RunKeeper
I used to use RunKeeper to track walks with my beloved pooch (@ReeseTheDog), but she’s living the leash-free good life now on acres of wooded land owned by my parents. It’s a lot tougher to motivate myself to walk without her, but when I do, I’ll be able to track my time, distance and calories burned with RunKeeper. Plus, it also maps my route so I can duplicate my route for consistency. Anyone taking bets on how long it will take before I can actually run a route instead of just walk it?

DailyBurn
The data nerd in me wants to take a data-driven approach to getting fit. In order to do that, I need a centralized place to collect, sort and synthesize all the data. That’s where DailyBurn comes in. It’s a lot like other dieting websites. I can enter my meals and exercise and it calculates my calories consumed and burned to help keep me on track. It also integrates with other gadgets and services, and it also features support groups, motivators and discussion boards.

Withings Scale
Speaking of gadgets integrating with DailyBurn, the Withings scale is one of them. This Wi-fi-enabled scale records your weight, body-mass index and other measurements, and sends them to the web. If I ever splurge and pay $159 for one of these bad boys, you can bet that I’ll not only sync my info with DailyBurn, I’ll also broadcast it to the entire world via Twitter. Public shame can be a good motivator for losing weight, right?

Google Maps Bike Routes
Eventually, I’ll get sick of walking around my neighborhood and I’ll need to go a bit further. It seems like jumping on a bicycle would be a good way to accomplish that, but urban bike-riding can be daunting to a beginner. Luckily, I can get a clue by checking out the bicycling view in Google Maps before my ride. Even though it doesn’t tell me that 23rd Avenue is a huge hill, it does tell me that I can pedal there without being flattened by a semi truck.

Do you have any technology tips to help a fat geek get back into shape (other than going to the gym)? Tell me in the comments.

Last week, thanks to Comcast’s Shauna Causey, I got the chance to watch part of the Masters golf tournament in live 3D. I know that 3D has been around since the 50s, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing an entire live sports broadcast in 3D.

Here’s a quick interview I did with Shauna:

Now, I know what you’re thinking — golf in 3D must have been pretty lame. That’s what I thought going in, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The 3D effects were actually very striking. All those long, panning shots of the rolling hills and babbling creeks were extremely vivid in 3D.  You could actually see the breaks in the green during a putt and anticipate how the ball would move around a dip or ridge. I can’t wait to see what ESPN and other broadcasters do with football and basketball!

Now, it’s worth noting that the TVs cost thousands of dollars and that you also need special battery-powered glasses to view them in 3D, but I do envision a scenario in which this could catch on. Imagine high-end sports bars installing one of these giant 3D TVs in a VIP room that sports fans can rent out for an event. Those rich sports fans then see the vivid picture and install one in their man caves.

For the common man, however, these 3D sets are going to remain out of reach, not to mention the cost of the special glasses and the cable package needed to view any sports in 3D.

But, then again, I only spent 10 minutes or so watching the 3D TV at the Comcast open house. Who’s to say that anyone can watch an entire sporting event without bleeding from their eyes or getting a mind-altering headache?

Just for fun, Shauna interviewed me too.

I’ve decided to get serious about my consumption of podcasts. I gave up TV all together just after the Super Bowl (in February 2009) and I’ve gotten most of my information through blogs via RSS feeds and links from good people I’m following on Twitter.

While I love getting information this way, it limits me in a couple of ways. I can’t do this stuff easily while walking around or exercising (and I really need to start exercising). And I can’t do it easily while in the car (and I spend more than an hour a day in my car).

This weekend, I fixed my car stereo auxiliary cord (actually, the guys at Car Toys did) and I bought and installed a windshield mount iPhone holder (WindowSeat by Griffin). I’ve tested it out and it works very well.

Now I have to get a pair of excellent iPhone earbuds that I can stand to have in my ears for an hour or two at a time. The goal is to be able to take a long walk with my dog while listening to Leo Laporte’s two-hour “The Tech Guy” podcast.

Maybe once I can commit to a regular long walk, I can start the “Couch to 5K” program iPhone app that I’ve heard so many good things about.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions for good podcasts (I’m looking at you Matt Whiting and Jeremy Meyers), please let me know in the comments.