Week 4 Progress Report: Learning From the Past

Weight Loss Progress, Feb. 11 – Mar. 11.

Beginning Weight:	286.6
Original Target:*	295.4
Adjusted Target:	284.8
Actual Weight:	280.2
Loss/Gain:	– 6.4
Total Loss:	– 22.4
Average Loss/Week:	5.6
* Original target calculated on a start weight of 302.6 and an average loss of 1.8 lbs./wk.

Twenty-two pounds. I try to sound positive when I write these posts, but I’m actually a bit of a pessimist and a lot of a worrywart. Losing over 5½ pounds a week when I’d only planned to lose just under 2 per week is actually kinda scary: It shouldn’t have been this easy. (What’s wrong with me? Did I subtract too much from my budget? Am I losing too much water? Have I got cancer and just don’t know it yet? Fret, fret, fret.) However, I’m comfortable with the amount I’m eating, and no other physical problem has shown up, so I’ll take the win.

The last time I weighed in at 280 was in September 2009. It was a heckuva victory — I’d lost just over 46 pounds in 7 months. Then I tried to quit smoking at the same time. I’d grown too confident in my ability to stick to the diet; I thought at the time that I’d gotten to the point where the diet was maintaining itself. In fact, I had stopped tracking my food and being accountable to others. Eventually, as I struggled to keep smoke-free, I began rationalizing deviances from the diet and began to put on the weight I’d lost.

Four months later, I was smoking again.

Add this to my list of intermediate goals: I will consider that 46-pound record broken when I weigh 255 or less. But while COPD/emphysema is a growing concern, the smoking will have to wait for a while longer. I’m trying to keep my focus on one major life change at a time;  right now, obesity presents the more immediate health risks. And this time, I won’t make the mistake of thinking that a few weeks or months of conscious calorie-counting will be enough to keep me on the path to a healthy weight. This is the way I have to live from now on.

Santayana’s maxim about people who don’t remember history comes to mind. I hope I keep and learn from my memory of past mistakes.