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.

Week 13 Progress Report: Settling Down for the Long Haul

I’m only a little overdue for the weekly report:

Starting Weight:	264.2
Original Target*:	279.2
Adjusted Target:	262.4
Actual Weight:	262.4
Loss/Gain:	– 1.8
Total Loss:	40.2
% of Goal:	29.0%
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.

It’s also past time for the monthly report, which is graphed in the upper left. On the monthly charts, the target weight is calculated from the first day of the month, while the master chart is calculated from the starting weight. Unlike last month, in which the “actual” line was far more often above the “target” line than below it, this month the “actual” was consistently below the “target”, though not always as far below it as I would have liked. This next month is already off to a rocky start, as I’m almost a pound over where I should be. However, since the target drops a little less than 0.3 lbs./day and my weight can fluctuate as much as 1 lb./day, I can get back on track pretty rapidly.

To date, I’ve lost 40 pounds in three months, or about 13.3 pounds a month. Not bad when you only plan to lose about 7.7 – 8 pounds a month. I now have about 98 pounds to lose in order to achieve a BMI of 24.9, which would be in the “healthy” range. However, as I’ve noted before, the rate has slowed down; I can’t plan on big drops now any more than I planned on the big drops in the first six weeks. This is where patience and determination have to take over and get me through the long haul because at just under 2 pounds a week, it’s going to take a bit more than a year to shed all that weight. Probably longer, because I fully expect the rate to slow more once I pass the halfway point.

And that’s not thinking about any plateaus.

Week 12 Progress Report: No Longer Morbid

First, apologies for missing Week 11; it was another hectic week. So let’s give the numbers for Week 12:

Starting Weight:	265.0
Original Target*:	281.0
Adjusted Target:	263.2
Actual Weight:	264.2
Loss/Gain:	– 0.8
Total Loss:	38.4
% of Goal:	27.7%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 3.2
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

It was a weird week. There were no days of egregious overeating; yet for a few days, I was going backward, gaining about half a pound a day. Contrast this with Monday, when I blew the calorie budget out of the water with a slice of a humongous deep-dish Dutch apple pie baked by a local chain called Emporium Pies and named “Lord of the Pies”, yet managed to lose a pound. (To account for this on Lose It!, I counted it as two slices of an ordinary Dutch apple pie — it really is that big!) As I’ve said before, we who count calories work with all sorts of uncertain numbers, so there’s nothing for it but to trust the process.

But even more pleasing than having lost the pound after the Epicurean delight of the pie was stepping on the scale this morning: 262.4! In two days, not only have I lost almost 2 pounds, but I had also achieved the first of my secondary goals — a BMI of 39.9, which takes me out of the “morbidly obese” category. I still have 66 pounds (plus or minus) to go before I’m merely overweight, but I’m about 38% of the way there. It also means I’ve lost just over 40 pounds in less than three months, which is a significant accomplishment.

Week 10 Progress Report: Easter Victory

Start Weight:		269.4
Original Target*:		284.6
Adjusted Target:		267.6
Actual Weight:		267.6
Loss/Gain:		– 1.8
Total Loss:		– 35.0
% of Goal:		25.3%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:		– 3.5
	*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia! Christ is truly risen!

Easter Sunday was great, but not the way I normally want to do things. A big cup of coffee and a Reese’s snack-size cup carried me through the morning to mid-afternoon, when we had an Easter early dinner that couldn’t be beat. Ham, potatoes, candied acorn squash (plenty of butter and brown sugar), marshmallow salad, rolls, and a brownie for dessert. Plus a shot of Catch Fire cinnamon whiskey (“That’ll wake ye up in th’ mornin’ lads!”). It was my one meal yesterday, and I blew my budget on it. And then some.

And I still dropped a pound. In fact, despite seemingly hitting a plateau earlier this week, I had lost the 1.8 pounds I had originally set as my weekly goal. My best guess is that I burned more calories preparing dinner and helping Mom than I thought I had.

That was my Easter victory.

Week 7 Progress Report: “Cutting Calories Doesn’t Work!”

Image source: lapbandsurgery.com.

Start Weight:		276.0
Original Target*:		290.0
Adjusted Target:		274.2
Actual Weight:		274.2
Loss/Gain:		– 1.8
Total Loss:		– 28.4
% of Goal:		20.5%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:		– 4.1
	*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

Compared with previous weeks, 1.8 pounds doesn’t look so dramatic. However, if you look at the bottom of the progress table, you’ll see that 1.8 pounds a week is exactly what I’d hoped and planned to lose from the beginning.

When my article on the deadly sin of Gluttony published on Catholic Stand, the first commenter argued that diets which depend simply on cutting calories are doomed to fail. Why? Because of hunger! Sooner or later, the hunger drives the dieter to overeat, and before you know it, they’re right back where they started! “Why don’t you see reunions on The Biggest Loser?” he asked rhetorically. Because just cutting calories doesn’t work.

Well, yes and no. Many people, when cutting calories, set a drastically low calorie target. For example, one friend of mine decided that she would not only start running again but eat no more than 500 kcal/day. Of course, hunger defeated her, despite her being a very strong-minded woman. The calorie target was much too low!