Week 24 Progress Report: The Forest and the Trees

So I’m late again, but it’s all for the best because I have something to add. First, Monday’s numbers:

Starting Weight:	242.6
Original Target*:	259.4
Adjusted Target:	240.8
Actual Weight:	241.6
Loss/Gain:	– 1.0
Total Loss:	61.0
% of Goal:	44.0%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 2.5
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

As I reported last week, I “gained” about a pound from choosing a permanent spot for my scale, so I wasn’t disappointed by losing only a pound overall. However, I did entertain the hope that today, Aug. 1, would find me ≤ 240. It didn’t happen.

In laying out the Project Nemesis plan, I wrote, “One week, you’ll do everything right and gain 1.5 pounds. The next week, you’ll blow your diet big time one day and your weight at the end of the week is down 1.5 pounds.” It can happen daily, too. Tuesday was full of activity and I had plenty of calories to spare on the budget when I went to bed. When I woke up, however, my wonky scale informed me that I’d jumped from 240.8 to 243. What. The. Hell. Yesterday was full of activity as well; however, I got hit with the late-night munchies and polished off half a bag of Rold Gold pretzels “off the books.” This morning, the aforementioned wonky scale said that I was back down to 241. Fine, except the 2-pound spike had spoiled my small hope to be under 240 today.

Week 22 Progress Report … and Nothing Else

I’m on time for once! Here are the box scores for this last week:

Starting Weight:	248.8
Original Target*:	263.0
Adjusted Target:	247.0
Actual Weight:	244.8
Loss/Gain:	– 4.0
Total Loss:	57.8
% of Goal:	41.7%
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.

It seems that over the last month or so, I’ve been trading weeks of good drops with weeks of marginal losses: 0.8, 2.4, 1.0, 2.6, 0.8, 4.0. But then, the low-drop weeks had special events which involved a feast of some sort. From Memorial Day through today, I’ve been averaging about a 1.8 lbs./week loss rate, which is what I’d planned for all along, so the fluctuations even out. I don’t expect another family feast episode until mid-August when some family comes in from Arizona. Even then, I’ve got so many delicious recipes with low calorie counts that I can keep everyone happy while still managing my plan.

On the clothes front: The khakis I bought three months ago are now a tad bit loose. The belt I bought to go with them is now on the fourth notch. My closet-dive didn’t produce much in the way of pants with smaller waists, and all but two of my slacks are now way too big for me. So I figure by the end of August, I’ll have to buy not only a couple more pairs of khakis but also some slacks and a pair of jeans—with 40" waists. (I do have shorts—which I can fit into now—but I haven’t been keen on shorts since the year I burnt the hell out of the backs of my knees working a pushcart in Gene Leahy Mall. Some things just stay with you, like crabgrass.)

I’m sorry I have no deeper thoughts or interesting stories to share this time. But hopefully, I’ll have a couple of recipes posted later this week. Until then, feel free to share your own successes and concerns, or to write to me with questions. Have a great week!

Closet-Diving and Memories

Tonight, I went closet-diving. “Closet-diving” is when you go through your clothes to check the fit of older items you put away for “when I lose a few pounds.” A female acquaintance described it as something women do, but I wouldn’t be surprised if other men besides me kept some skinnier clothes from bygone days.

It started this morning when I put on my white guayabera shirt, one piece of a huge selection of clothes that a former coworker had given me after her husband lost a lot of weight and, ignorant of this fact, I had complained to her about the bareness of my wardrobe. (It was an incredibly generous gift; the total donation was easily worth $1,000 even in 2007.) A 3XL, I noticed with some amusement that the guayabera is now beginning to fit like a muumuu. Nevertheless, I wore it all day because guayaberas and tropical prints are good shirts to wear on a north-central Texas summer day, especially on “casual Friday.”

About an hour ago, after my brother had come home from dinner with his not-quite-ex-wife (I’ll leave you to wonder about that because I wonder, too), I mentioned the capacious Cuban shirt to him. “I’ll have to check out Goodwill,” I told him, “because this is the best of my tropical shirts. The rest are looking pretty ratty.”

“Hold on a moment,” Ted replied. He dived into his walk-in closet and found an ivory guayabera and a light-blue tropical print that hadn’t been taken out of the cleaner bags for some time. The tropical print was 2XL; it fits loose but good and is attractive as well.

The guayabera is a large. Not extra-large … merely large. And it fits. Not even a slight bit of strain at the button over my belly. That’s what prompted the closet-dive.