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.

Weight Wackiness and Envy: Competition vs. Comparison

On Sept. 11, as I told you in the last post, my weight dipped below the 50% mark on my weight-loss plan — for the first time. Yes, you read that right. The next day, for some unfathomable reason, it shot up again a whole two pounds. I’ve said before that fluctuations like this can happen even when you do everything right. So, after screaming in my head about the unfairness of it, I shrugged and went on with my program. On Friday, it dropped back down 1.6 pounds, which was good even though it didn’t completely erase the jump up. Back a little across the halfway line.

The people on Lose It! cheer every little drop, no matter how small, and offer encouraging thoughts for holds and upticks. One friend, Marjorie, joked that she was “totally jealous” about the drop. When I said I didn’t know why she was jealous, she replied, “Because I get excited when I lose 0.5 lbs. in one day so to drop 1.6 lbs. is wishful thinking for me and totally awesome that you did!” (I have to think Marjorie is an age peer because of her use of ’80s lingo. When I’m not writing and with my friends, it all comes out: totally, fer sure, excellent, bogus, gnarly, “I’m like”, dude (regardless of sex or gender), etc. Totally for us is what literally is for young millennials — a clean all-purpose intensive.)

I reminded Marjorie, “If you lose [an average] 0.2 lbs. per day, you’re losing 1.4 lbs. a week. That’s a great, safe rate to drop. Again, I don’t know how much of the ± 1-lb. fluctuations I sometimes (SOMETIMES) get are scale wackiness and how much are body wackiness. Don’t envy me; you’re doing great!”

Wackiness … what a terrific word to describe the effect of imprecision on weight loss. It’s like playing blackjack: Even if you don’t cross the (objective) “bust” line, you still have to beat the dealer, whose hand is also variable. Nevertheless, there are winning strategies that don’t guarantee victory in every hand but can generally lead to leaving the table with more than you sat down with.

But in sensible weight loss, you’re not really competing against another person. The complete set of physical, emotional, and social or environmental challenges each person faces in weight loss is unique. Put differently, we all play against different dealers under house rules that vary slightly from table to table. That’s why, while group goals and challenges can be motivating and fun, you should never take them so seriously that you interpret someone else’s progress as an implicit reflection (and judgment) against you.