Week 52 Progress Report: The Year in Review

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of this program. Since I don’t have tomorrow’s weight, which won’t be that much better than today’s (I’ll explain), I’ll use today’s to discuss the year-end progress. However, let’s start off with the week-ending stats:

Starting Weight:	208.8
Original Target*:	209.0
Adjusted Target:	207.0
Actual Weight:	210.8
Loss/Gain:	+ 2.0
Total Loss:	91.8
% of Goal:	66.2%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 1.8
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

At an average loss rate of 1.8 pounds/week, I should have lost 93.6 pounds — and I might have come much closer if I hadn’t broken down while bowling last night and had a basket of French fries. (They’re so delicious when they’re fresh out of the fryer! But they turn into complex sugars almost the minute they hit your mouth.) As it is, from being at one point 19 pounds under the line to 1.8 pounds over the line takes the shine off of an accomplishment that’s otherwise still praiseworthy.

Week 48 Progress Report: Start Your Day Right

Greetings! First, the week-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	216.0
Original Target*:	216.2
Adjusted Target:	214.2
Actual Weight:	212.0
Loss/Gain:	– 4.0
Total Loss:	90.6
% of Goal:	65.4%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 1.9
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

And now for the Month 11 ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	212.8
Target Weight:	202.0
Actual Weight:	212.4
Loss/Gain:	– 0.4
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 0.1

Essentially, then, Month 11 was a wash. However, it could have been much worse: I could still be hovering around 215 – 216. That it ended a wash was because I got back on the program last week. As of this morning, I weighed 211.6, despite a large dinner and forgetting to log my bedtime snacks. The way my weigh-ins fluctuate, it’s not inconceivable for me to weigh in at 209 or slightly less by Monday, which would put me under the monthly curve and undo the last of the holiday excess.

Month 10 Progress Report: Some Observations on Turkey

Okay, it’s a couple of days late. Just some things happening around the house that have disturbed my routine, but I’m adjusting. Here are the month-end numbers from Nov. 11 to Dec. 11:

Starting Weight:	217.6
Target Weight:	207.1
Actual Weight:	212.8
Loss/Gain:	– 4.8
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 1.1

I ended up 5.7 lbs. above target. Much of this I discussed in the last couple of weekly progress reports. I’ve accepted that I won’t be under 200 by Jan. 1; but if I stick with my current budget, I can get under 202.6 by Jan. 11, which would be 100 lbs. lost in 11 months. If, after that point, I return to my beginning calorie deficit, I can get under 200 by Jan. 19 and under 196 by Feb. 4.

On the positive side, in the last two days, I weighed in at 210.6 this morning, despite having lost the negotiations with myself and made a pan of peanut butter fudge. (It’s delicious, although a bit crumbly.) If I stay on top of my intake, I can make the under-210 primary goal by Monday, the end of Week 44. I do have roast turkey planned for tomorrow night, but we’re not doing all the traditional sides; that’s too much work and too many calories. Certainly, there’ll be stuffing, but the green beans will be roasted and the potatoes won’t be mashed. For sweetness, there’ll be a Waldorf salad made with yogurt. So with some self-control, the turkey dinner shouldn’t interfere with achieving the under-210 mark by Monday.

Week 35 Progress Report: Sleep and Cookies

Image Source: Flickr

Let’s first look at the week-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	226.0
Original Target*:	239.6
Adjusted Target:	223.7
Actual Weight:	222.6
Loss/Gain:	– 3.4
Total Loss:	80.0
% of Goal:	57.7%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 2.3
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

Note first that the adjusted target reflects a 2.3-lbs./week loss rate rather than the 1.8 lbs./week I originally planned on. As I discussed in the month-end report, I’m shooting for less than 200 lbs. by January 1 as part of a 90-Day Challenge, so the adjusted target reflects the rate at which I need to drop to make that goal. It’s early days yet, but so far, the 166-kcal cut I had to take in my calorie budget has only slightly inconvenienced me. In fact, I’d say that as well as I’ve done over the last eight months, I’ve probably hindered myself more by not sleeping enough than by overeating.

For most if not all of my adult life, I’ve been a night owl, going to bed in the wee hours of the morning without even the bare excuse of partying all night. When I was younger, this was because I most often worked night shifts, whether it was at fast-food restaurants or call centers. More and more as I got older, though, either the nature of the business I was in or pressing financial concerns demanded varying shifts, extra hours, twice a second job. At the same time, my friends and family all eventually had regular day jobs with regular hours, so my social life often demanded that I wake up after minimal sleep, often as little as 3½ hours. Not surprisingly, this meant I occasionally overslept when my overtaxed body and mind demanded it.

Month 8 Progress Report: Challenges and Milestones

This is actually the first time I’ve reported the month-end numbers separately from week-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	232.8
Target Weight:	225.1
Actual Weight:	224.8
Loss/Gain:	– 8.0
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 1.9

A friend of mine started a private 90-Day Challenge group on Facebook to end the year strong. Members could pick their own challenge and the others would cheer them on. For my challenge, I chose what had been a “stretch goal”: under 200 lbs. by New Year’s Day.

For the purposes of the challenge, I chose Oct. 3 as the start date so Day 90 would fall on Jan. 1, 2020. But because I waited to take off the weight I gained in the hospital, I didn’t actually sit down to do the calculations for the challenge plan until Oct. 7. Achieving the goal, I found, would mean shaving another 166 kcal off my daily budget.

On paper, my budget was already close to the recommended 1,500 kcal/day minimum recommended by the NIH for men. Over the last 4 weeks, however, I’ve averaged about 1,643 kcal in my actual intake, due to my activity. The Lose It! app subtracts calories burned in activity from your intake. So long as I maintain a certain level of activity, then, I can still eat over 1,500 kcal/day and remain within my budget.

Enter Challenge #2: maintaining that “certain level of activity.”

Week 29 Progress Report: Single Servings; or, Sufficient Unto the Day

Yeah, I’ve been silent for a while. This last couple of weeks have been a struggle to get back into the discipline of dieting, during which I had to re-think the decision I made last month to decrease my Lose It! budget adjustment. First, though, let’s get to the weekly numbers:

Starting Weight:	236.2
Original Target*:	250.4
Adjusted Target:	234.4
Actual Weight:	237.4
Loss/Gain:	+ 1.2
Total Loss:	65.2
% of Goal:	47.0%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 2.2
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

Since Aug. 11, I’ve only lost 2.4 pounds. Obviously, I missed my goal of ≤ 233.2 by Sept. 1, which by itself is disappointing. However, more frustrating is the fact that I’m almost four pounds over the plan month target line and will have to lose 5.6 pounds in the next week to get back on track. Not impossible, but improbable because difficult without some degree of intentional starvation, which after several months’ consideration I’m not inclined to support even if we call it “fasting.”

I’m still 13 pounds ahead of where I’d originally planned to be, which is good; as I’ve said before, the point is not so much to lose N pounds by D date as it is just to lose the N pounds. But I don’t want the program to sputter to a halt because I lost focus and/or discipline. The first couple of weeks were excusable due to the circumstances of my mother’s death and funeral. Not so the last couple of weeks; in all honesty, I can’t even call it a “plateau.” “It’ll take as long as it takes” is meant to encourage patience, not to rationalize dicking off.

Week 25 Progress Report: Budgets and BMR Calculations

Okay, first, the box scores:

Starting Weight:	241.6
Original Target*:	257.6
Adjusted Target:	239.8
Actual Weight:	238.6
Loss/Gain:	– 3.0
Total Loss:	64.0
% of Goal:	46.2%
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.

Yesterday, I put on a pair of dress loafers I hadn’t worn in some months and discovered something I didn’t think to expect: my feet have become a little smaller. Feet become pudgy as do other parts of your body. As well, excess weight tends to push the bones out to the sides. I’m not so much pleased by the change as I am disconcerted.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I began my program, I started using Samsung Health to count my daily steps. Every night, I entered the mileage and my active time into the Lose It! app, which calculates the burn and subtracts it from my total calorie intake. So far, so good, except that my phone’s battery is getting weaker and the app consumes quite a bit of power when I’m walking. Recently, I’ve pulled out my phone to check things only to find it’s shut itself off, either to conserve power or because it’s already lost all charge. Many of my most recent entries have been estimates. The important thing, though, is that Lose It! rarely subtracts more than 200 – 250 kcal for my walking unless it’s an unusually hectic Sunday and I bowl that night.