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 34 Progress Report: More Medical Matters and Some Compliments

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Here are the week-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	231.2
Original Target*:	241.4
Adjusted Target:	229.4
Actual Weight:	226.0
Loss/Gain:	– 5.2
Total Loss:	76.6
% of Goal:	55.3%
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.

I blew the diet Friday night, when we had tamales (gotta have chili on them), frijoles charros (which I prefer to refrijoles), and Mexican rice. Too much jalapeño — I suffered all of Saturday, and it may have contributed to the resolution of my distribution problem. Alas, the effects of aging. I can no longer eat spicy foods with gastric impunity. But the resolution of that problem is 95% of the 5.2-lb. drop. I finally earned my Lose It! 75-Lb. Club badge.

Speaking of the distribution problem: I spoke with my “Indian mom” (my primary care doctor) on Thursday, during a post-hospital follow-up. She listened with concern to my problem. She gave me a couple of four-pill bottles of Linzess, recommended more fiber in my diet (natch), recommended a fiber supplement, and referred me to a gastroenterologist.

Why the GI doctor? Well, there’s a certain procedure that’s recommended for everyone at age 50 and about every 5 years afterward. Doctor Chandi, however, knew that I had been laid off shortly after my 50th birthday and had no insurance for almost four years afterward, so she never made an issue of it. And if she wasn’t going to bring it up, neither was I. But now I’m insured, so I don’t get to put that procedure off any longer.

Week 33 Progress Report: Medical Matters and Not Too Much Information

So here are the weekly numbers, and we have a bit to talk about:

Starting Weight:	230.0
Original Target*:	243.2
Adjusted Target:	228.2
Actual Weight:	231.2
Loss/Gain:	+ 1.2
Total Loss:	71.4
% of Goal:	51.5%
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.

Thursday, I weighed in at 227.2, which took me past the 75-lb. loss mark. Yay me, right? Except that I noticed the right side of my face had swollen to the point that it was starting to creep into my visual range. I had had a little swelling for a few days, but I had thought it was an impacted sinus, which I’d had before. So I called Teladoc and paid $45 dollars for the doctor to tell me to go to the ER.

The ER doctor treated the swelling, which was cellulitis, as almost a side issue — he was much more concerned about the polyp in my right nostril which I’d had for several years. The doctor was concerned because my blood oxygen was down to 88%. So he ordered a CT scan and called in a local ENT to consult on the case. Turns out the polyp was only “benign” so far as cancer goes. Over the last 5½ years, it had been slowly growing inside my face. So the ENT ended up removing the mass in an endoscopic examination.

When I was discharged, my blood oxygen was at 98%, my BP at 112/72, and my pulse a slow but healthy 48 bpm. Amazing what having two working nostrils can do, huh? Ah, lovely oxygen! Two morals from this: 1) Never let financial concerns keep you from taking care of a health issue; and 2) No matter how smart you are — if you’re not a doctor, you shouldn’t try to guess which health issues are serious and which aren’t. Being smart is not the same thing as being wise.

While I was there, I began to notice that something else was wrong ….

Week 32 Progress Report: Dealing with Skin Sag; or, Rewriting the Food Script

I broke away in the middle of writing this report to empty out, clean, and spray down the pantry with bug spray, a task that took a little longer than I expected … like 11 hours. Anyway, here are the box scores from yesterday’s weigh-in:

Starting Weight:	233.0
Original Target*:	245.0
Adjusted Target:	231.2
Actual Weight:	230.0
Loss/Gain:	– 3.0
Total Loss:	72.6
% of Goal:	52.4%
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.

Although I finished slightly above the plan month target line, when you plan for only slightly less than two pounds a week, a three-pound drop is nothing to sneer at. In fact, the number reflects a bounce up from Sunday (229.4 lbs.), which was significantly below the line. The chicken parmesan, made by Your Humble Writer, was worth it. And today, yesterday’s hard work resulted in a 0.8-lb. drop, even after finishing the day with a bag of popcorn with some nutritionally horrific butter oil added to it. Je ne regrette rien.

Of course, having lost so much weight in a comparatively little time — about 7½ months to lose what I gained over about seven years — I notice that some areas, particularly around my torso, are “sagging, bagging, and dragging,” as I heard Dolly Parton once put it. Your skin isn’t like a rubber band to begin with. And years of processed foods, smoking, and not drinking enough water, not to mention the slow surrender of a middle-aged body to Time, have reduced my skin’s elasticity.

Week 31 Progress Report: Loving Yourself Back to Health

So here, on time for once, are the week-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	234.6
Original Target*:	246.8
Adjusted Target:	232.8
Actual Weight:	233.0
Loss/Gain:	– 1.6
Total Loss:	69.6
% of Goal:	50.2%
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.

As I reported yesterday, I suffered an inexplicable 2-lb. spike on Thursday which took the burnish off crossing the 50% mark on Wednesday. I lost most but not all of it on Friday and had a completely awesome dinner that night which cost me 0.4 lbs. on Saturday. Compared to the plan-month target line, I’m over by 1.5 lbs. However, considering the two upticks this week, I did pretty good and am still well ahead of where I originally planned to be. One and a half pounds down for the week is much better than a pound and a half up. Take the victories you get.

This morning, one of my Lose It! friends posted a quote from Ijeoma Oluo: “You can’t hate your body into a shape you will love.” (Ijeoma, you will remember, is the woman who lost weight only to come to resent the change in people’s attitude toward her.)

I agree you can’t hate your body into a shape you will love. But by the same token, you can’t wish away obesity’s damage to your health. Losing weight is not about hating your body. It’s about treating your body with the love and respect it deserves. (It’s about treating food with the respect it deserves, too.) My body has been trying to tell me for a long time, in ways both subtle and obvious, that it doesn’t like the way I treat it and that, if I go on abusing it, it will break down good and proper.

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.

Week 30 Progress Report: In the Backstretch

As I promised yesterday, here are the week-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	237.6
Original Target*:	248.6
Adjusted Target:	235.8
Actual Weight:	234.6
Loss/Gain:	– 2.2
Total Loss:	68.0
% of Goal:	49.1%
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.

And here are the month-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	239.2
Target Weight:	231.2
Actual Weight:	232.8
Loss/Gain:	– 6.4
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 1.4

As I said yesterday, I missed the month-ending goal by 1.6 lbs. However, it’s a new month with a new goal: 225.1 lbs. I’m five pounds away from completing the Halloween challenge; I should have that knocked out by the beginning of October. The next secondary goal is the 2/3rds mark, ≤ 210.2, which is only slightly above my year-end goal; more than likely, the weigh-in that achieves one will achieve the other as well. Already, I’m close to the weight range in which I spend most of my twenties and thirties — still obese, but far less so than when I was in my forties. (My ideal range is something I passed when I was a young teenager and shorter than I am now.)

By the way, I didn’t tell you I have hypothyroidism. Not taking your hypothyroid medication does make it harder to lose weight. That partially (but not sufficiently) explains the period from 8/23 to about 9/6, when my weight went back up and wouldn’t come down: I had run out of levothyroxine and put off picking up the refills. No more of that.

Just shy of 70 pounds in seven months. That’s quite a feat, no matter how you look at it. And it all began pretty much on a whim.

A PSA and a Reflection

Tomorrow, Sept. 11, will be the end of the August plan month and the beginning of the September plan month. (It’s also the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. So I’ll be off social media from 8:46am to 10:28am EDT.) I’ve put off the weekly progress report until tomorrow so I can include the numbers for this last month.

I repeat, tomorrow ends the plan month. This month, due to the funeral week and the problems I had regaining diet discipline, I’ve already missed a secondary goal, which was to have lost at least 69.3 lbs. by Sept. 1, and will almost certainly miss my month-end goal of ≤ 231.2 lbs.

That’s okay.

First, I am back to the program discipline and am losing weight again. Second, because I shed weight so fast at the very beginning of the program, I’m still well ahead of where I originally expected to be. The most important thing about all the goals is that they help to keep me focused. Missing a goal does not make me a bad person. And besides, behind many great successes are a lot of small failures. (Let that be your aphorism for today.)

Third, and most important, tomorrow also starts a new plan month, with a new month-end goal. The month-end goal always reflects where the month began, not where the plan began. So the problems of this month will have little if anything to do with the challenges and successes the next month will bring. Tomorrow or the next day, I hope I'll have passed the 50% benchmark in my overall plan. By the end of the month, I expect I’ll have met and surpassed the Halloween challenge. And I still expect to meet my year-end goal of ≤ 210lbs., even with the temptations the Thanksmas season tends to bring.

At the end of the day, though, it’s not about “losing so much weight by such-and-such a date.” It’s about controlling your eating rather than letting your eating control you.

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 27 Progress Report: We Now Return You to Your Regularly Scheduled Weight Loss

Here are the numbers from Monday:

Starting Weight:	239.0
Original Target*:	254.0
Adjusted Target:	237.2
Actual Weight:	240.4
Loss/Gain:	+ 1.4
Total Loss:	62.2
% of Goal:	44.9%
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.

Last week, I wrote on Monday as my mother lay dying in her bed. She passed the next morning, surrounded by her family. My sister had come in on Sunday; two uncles and an aunt arrived in the wee hours of Tuesday, just in time. More family arrived in the next three days. And the eating and drinking commenced.

Despite my good intentions, calorie tracking went out the window for a week. Thank God I stopped drinking to excess in my twenties; otherwise, my weight gain would have been much more. Moreover, I still managed to keep a limit on my intake — except for the first night, when we had fried chicken from Babe’s Chicken Dinner House (which, if you ever visit the DFW area, you have to try). Still, by Sunday morning, my siblings and I were “fooded out”; we were all ready to go back to our weight-loss regimens.

And the food just would not stop coming.