Category: Weight

Another week, another … weight loss?

Yeah …

I started off getting back in the diet swing of things at the beginning of September, when I went back to karate classes.  I was at just under 218.

I started this week at just over 212, and end it just over 211.  And I actually dipped to below 210 on one day.

A couple of cool things:

1. I haven’t gained weight back the last few weekends.  Since that’s our main dining out times, that’s significant.
2. Though I’m exercising a measure of self-control, I’m still indulging on occasion. I had pizza at a lunchtime office meeting yesterday, and more than a couple of slices. And I also received some Rum Raisin ice cream last night.  Because I knew how much I’d  been working out, I felt okay eating some yummy things.

Now, to be fair, day-to-day weight loss is flaky as hell (as the graph shows), and is as much a matter of water retention at this scale as it is of counting calories.  That said, the graph is definitely headed in the right direction …

I haven’t been talking much about weight, diet, etc., here of late.  And, yes, there’s a reason for that.

The chart at the right (click to enbiggen) shows my weight over the last year and a half (since January of 2009).  The nice steep curve in the first half or so, down through October/November of last year, should be familiar, since I posted it irregularly (last in September of that year).

Then a few things happened:

1. The holiday season — Thanksgiving, then Christmas — intervened.
2. Somewhere in the middle of that, Margie broke her ankle, which was a, um, distracting and stressful event.
3. I decided I could go without actually doing the Geek Diet calorie counting thing.  After all, I knew good eating habits, right?

As you can see, the curve starts trending up. And up.

Then in June, you can see a huuuge jump.  That’s when I:

1. Stopped going to karate (which is a large meal’s worth of calories burned each session).
2. Stopped weighing myself for a while.

The result was popping back up to what seems to be my “natural” weight if I’m not paying attention, around 215.  Bleah.  And while I could simply ignore it by not weighing myself, or not  paying attention to the flab, I couldn’t ignore the Size 36s I couldn’t fit into (reliably) any more.  Which was sort of the real wake-up call.

I am back on the wagon again, however, counting calories (through the LiveStrong MyPlate system), being sure to walk daily, and taking karate again (as schedule allows).  And there has been a perceptible down-dip as a result.

My short-term goal is to get back down below 200 again (the “Waypoint” on the chart).  There’s something magic about that number.  Plus, all my pants would fit again.

My long-term goal remains to get down to 185.  I’m not setting a time limit this time, just a goal. But I’ll keep tracking to it.

If “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” it also seems to be the price of weight control.  Good habits are essential, but they erode easily in the face of plenty. It’s possible to have a great meal or celebration, even if it goes over the daily limits — as long as that’s the exception, not the rule.

Still waiting for the magic diet pills, but until they come along (and test out safe for a lengthy period of time), I’ll have to do this the hard way — exercise and diet.

Well, the graph shows it all in looking at the weight loss thang for June … not a lot of progress, but at least no fall-back. 

The big line on the right side is our being out in California for a week and a half: staying at Jim & Ginger’s, celebrating my folks’ 50th, going to KOA. All of those were opportunities for a lot of caloric intake, but evidently I had enough outgo, too, since basically I weighed as much (within a tenth of a pound) when I got back as I did when I left.

So I suppose I can consider that a moral victory, though I’m disappointed that my trending is pushing my target waaaaay out . I may need to drop down my daily calorie count to see if I can do something about that. We’ll see how the current holiday weekend works, and what it’s like getting back into the “normal” schedule of things.

Because I promised (myself, but publicly) I would …

So, clearly, the trip to Walt Disney World was a net weight gain (5 lbs. by the time all was said and done). I think I was okay, calorie-wise, the first few days, but some larger meals toward the end of the trip, and through the weekend, with not as much hiking about — and the conscious decision to treat it all as a “holiday” — did me in.

On the plus side, I’m back on the directional track I’m wanting to be on so far in June. Biggest concern coming up is, of course, KOA and the week in California. We’ll see how that affects the results for this month. 🙂

I would like to get my trendline back to 185 back under the pound-a-week, even though I’m (as of yesterday) pretty darned close to where I want to be as a data point.

Calories this week (only tracked M-F): 8,889 of 9,665 target, hence the nice, steep curve.  Karate helps in this immensely, as a big minus on the net on those two days. I did a lot of work from home this week, which probably bumped up the intake some and knocked down the (walking) exercise. And, of course, the weekends are the days I’m most likely to over-indulge, even when not on vacation …

Hrm. Well, that’s disappointing.

1. I net gained weight (2.4 lbs.) over the month of April.
2. That drove me over my smooth line weight loss goal for the whole program (the magenta line).

There are all sorts of excuses — some big events, holidays, family visits, etc. But bottom line is that I didn’t make the progress I wanted to make. I’m still trending to the original track, but this month has basically been a waste.

Disappointing.

(Note to self: presence of chips in kitchen does not require presence of chips in mouth.)

So here’s what I need to do. As always, if I’m not paying attention, I get sloppy. Opportunities always about, slopes grow gradually slipperier, just a little more becomes quite a bit more, and a one-off indulgence becomes a regular bad habit.

So I need to (once more, with feeling) need to be habitually (that means regularly, Dave, not when it occurs to you) tracking input and outgo. I.e., I need to track my caloric content and exercising. Again. Still. Some more.

Ironically, Doyce touched on just this theme today (“In May, I will form a habit“), discussing the steps of creating good habits.

1. Commitment of the public sort. Which I’ve been doing, by way of these blog posts and (currently embarrassing) monthly graphs.
2. Practice doing things on a daily basis. Well, when it comes to eating, that makes sense. 
3. Tracking stuff in logs, so you can spot lapses, successes, and trends. I’ve been doing my weigh-ins three times a week (except, tellingly, the last week or so). Tracking calories plus/minus is a daily thing. That’s what I need to get into. But a confirmation of that will be my starting a weekly log of calories. Again, that’s both tracking, and making a public commitment.
4. 4. Rewards. Not quite sure what to do to reward myself — save that, when I am tracking this stuff, I can see when I can “afford” something nice. Or can even eat some calories on credit if I know I’m going to make up for it.
5. 5. Focus. I am focusing on the calorie log. I can do that. I know, because I have.

And, ironically, he focused on (his own) weight loss regimen. So it’s good to know that I’m not alone in all this. Here’s hoping (resolving) that fostering good habits will stick.

Well, March is over. Which, from a weight standpoint, is a good thing, because this was a rather sketchy month, all in all.

So, what the heck happened? Aside from some brief joy dripping down below 200 for two consecutive weigh-ins, this was a calorie-heavy month. Early on was Margie Gras. Plus some weekend goings-out and social activities. And Jim and Ginger were in town the last two weekends, and that always leads (quite pleasantly) to more good food and wine.

Things change back to normal now for a while, so I expect I should be able to drop down to the previous trend line pretty quickly. If not, I’ll be quite miffed.

Another month, another “full disclosure means full accountability” discussion of my current weight loss regiment. Let’s run the numbers.

Compared to last month, the numbers don’t necessarily look so good, as I crowed about being down to 203, and this morning I weight in at 202.

The 203 was a bit of an anomaly, though, a low point on the scale. The current trend line shows I was really only at about 207. So I’m within my goal of a pound a week, or maybe better, over the last month, and I’m still well ahead of that (the pink line) since the top of the year.

I’ll confess that there was the better part of a week there in the middle, when Mist died, that a bit of “let’s not add the stress of dieting, even if it’s a relatively low-stress diet”) didn’t help, nor did a week of missing karate (the same week, which had both the cat and Katherine’s science fair keeping me from my major exercise regimen. Though, even through that, I didn’t actually gain anything, I just plateaued.

Those are reasons, not excuses. The result, though, is that I am trending toward hitting my magic 185 lbs. (which, in reality, I’ve done nearly half of from my starting weight) at the beginning of May, rather than last month’s mid-March or the plan’s late August. And there’s no reason for me to think I can’t actually hit that, so … that’s where I’m aiming.

And, in the meantime, my pants are fitting better and better, and all the tight 36s are back in the middle of the closet rather than off at the end. I’m happy about that.