Week 21 Progress Report: Some Episodes of Gluttony

This week, I purposely delayed the report so I could include the month-end report. Here are the numbers from Monday:

Starting Weight:	249.6
Original Target*:	264.8
Adjusted Target:	247.8
Actual Weight:	248.8
Loss/Gain:	– 0.8
Total Loss:	53.8
% of Goal:	38.8%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 2.6
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

And now, here are the month-end numbers:

Starting Weight:	253.8
Target Weight:	246.1
Actual Weight:	247.0
Loss/Gain:	– 6.8
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 1.6

As you can tell from the chart at top left, I spent most of the month above the targets, with spikes on June 22 (family in from out of town that weekend) and the Independence Day holiday weekend. Nevertheless, after five months, I’m still about 17 pounds ahead of where I originally planned to be at this point.

In the meantime, I discovered three things:

1)      It’s much easier to overeat at a Chinese buffet than at a 4th of July cookout. Buffets tend to trigger a rather stupid reaction in me along the lines of: “Since it’s ‘all you can eat,’ the more you eat, the more value for your money.” If it had been up to me, we wouldn’t have gone; but it wasn’t, so we did. I rationalized it because of the family visiting, but I still could have exercised better control.

2)      I can eat a cheeseburger or a brat, but I can’t eat both anymore. I had the brat first. I’d prepped the cheeseburger without a second thought, but as I picked it up to eat, I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish it. Only sheer bloody-mindedness got me halfway through; I shouldn’t have even tried. In the after-action briefing, my brother and I decided we really don’t need to cook so much meat for cookouts anymore.

3)      A 6-oz. bacon-wrapped filet satisfies my hunger for steak just fine. Twenty years or so ago, when my friends and I used to go to Piccolo’s in South Omaha for dinner, I would order the largest cut of prime rib I could afford—either the 12-oz. or, when I was especially flush, the 15-oz. (Piccolo’s was an Italian steak house, which meant that you got a side of mostaccioli with marinara as one of your side dishes. Sadly, Piccolo’s has passed into history, along with all the Caniglia restaurants.) In the last 10 years, though, eating more than 8 ounces at a time has become—pardon the pun—a rare event; the couple of times my brother has brought ribeyes home, we’ve eaten only half at a time.

This goes back to the “scarcity mindset” of gluttony. For most of us in America, food is radically available in mass quantities practically 24/7; only in the wealthy West can you see extremely poor people who are also grotesquely obese. Even with the extensive flooding in the Plains states, food isn’t scarce and won’t be scarce anytime in the foreseeable future. Why, then, should we use buffets, cookouts, and potlucks as excuses to eat as though we’d just been released from a Nazi concentration camp?

The scarcity mindset of Gluttony, with its unreasonable fear of future paucity, destroys gratitude for present abundances …. To be grateful for what we have is to treat it properly, with respect. To gulp food rapidly, to constantly crave novelty or delicacy or emotional fulfillment, to eat as if only your taste buds matter—all those show that what we want (that is, what we lack) is not food for the body but food for the soul. Physically, we’re growing more obese; spiritually, however, we’re starving. (Anthony S. Layne, “Immoderate Desires I: The Deadly Sin of Gluttony”)

Tomorrow I may reprint the Catholic Stand article from which I drew the above paragraph. For right now, suffice it to say that I no longer find overeating fun. I don’t exactly feel guilty when I do it, but the absurd futility of overeating is becoming ever clearer. So I’m back “on the wagon”, to recall a parallel from alcoholism. And I think the “diet holiday” exception (Rule #11) needs to be re-tooled.

Looking ahead: I’ve accepted a Lose It! challenge to lose 20 lbs. by Halloween. Although my average loss/week this last month was under plan, with 16 weeks until Halloween it would only take a loss rate of 1.25 lbs./week to make the goal of 227 lbs. If I stick with the plan, however, I could lose about 29 pounds, so my adjusted goal for right now is 219.2 lbs. I’ve also updated my major goals to reflect the head start I got earlier in the year. The whole point of the goals is to keep me honest; I don’t want to start slacking because of the 17-pound lead. So my year-end goal is ≤ 210 by 1/1/20, and my third goal is ≤ 196 by 3/11/20 (stretch date is 2/11/20, the plan anniversary). Lose It! calculates that I’ll reach my plan goal of 164 by 8/2/20, probably factoring in a drop in rate, so I’ll keep the goal date at 8/1/20 (end of Week 77 will be 8/3/20).

That’s right—56 more weeks to lose 83 more pounds. Eating the elephant one bite at a time.