Showing posts with label plateaus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plateaus. Show all posts

Week 16 Progress Report: Plateaus Aren’t Really Flat


Weight Chart

Here are today’s numbers:

Starting Weight:
257.2
Original Target*:
273.8
Adjusted Target:
255.4
Actual Weight:
256.4
Loss/Gain:
– 0.8
Total Loss:
46.2
% of Goal:
33.3%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:
– 2.9
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.
This last week is hard to describe. There wasn’t a day since Tuesday that I went over-budget; yet on Wednesday, my weight shot up a discouraging 2.6 pounds, wrecking my effort to achieve the May challenge goal of 3% loss.

I’m almost certain that much of the fluctuation depends on how much sleep I’ve gotten when I weigh in, as well as the vagaries of estimating some portions and the calories I’ve consumed. For instance, yesterday I got up at 3:30 am to pick my cousin up from DFW International Airport, so I weighed in shortly thereafter. After taking him to Gainesville, a 1½-hour trip with a 45-minute stop at Cracker Barrel for a 500-calorie breakfast, having consumed my normal travel mug full of coffee (with a little extra at Cracker Barrel), I weighed again for the heck of it when I got back home. The scale told me I had neither lost nor gained anything. I should have expected at least a fractional difference because I was wearing street clothes rather than pajamas. Weird.

(How do you get a 500-calorie breakfast at Cracker Barrel, where carbs and fat abound? Simple: A side of two eggs — I prefer “over medium” — and a side of their Loaded Hashbrown Casserole. A lot of their breakfast entrees are under 550 calories, so long as you don’t get “All the Fixin’s.”)

Week 14 Progress Report: A Couple of Observations


This will be a short report:

Starting Weight:
262.4
Original Target*:
277.4
Adjusted Target:
260.6
Actual Weight:
259.4
Loss/Gain:
– 3.0
Total Loss:
43.2
% of Goal:
31.2%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:
– 3.1
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.
As I was logging my weekly weigh-in, I noticed that on the spreadsheet I created to track my weekly progress, I had originally stated my first goal to be at or under 250 lbs. by Sept. 1. At the time, it seemed reasonable because I’d only planned to lose 1.8 lbs./week. Besides, the last time I ran this program, it had taken me from Valentine’s Day to September 1, 2009 to lose 47 pounds. Fifty-three pound in roughly the same amount of time seemed optimistic but not unrealistic.

Now I’m on track to pass that goal by mid-June, a full two and a half months ahead of schedule. This also implies that I’ll meet my second original major goal, ≤ 225 by Jan. 1, about the beginning of October.