An Interesting Observation...

Slowly but surely, my weight is dropping off. I kind of yo-yo through the week, but so far, the past month-plus has had a net drop in weight each week. To the point that I've lost 5.4 pounds from 4/13 thru 5/18. Yay me!

As I've noted in previous posts, usually at the beginning of the week, when I am unable to hit the gym or avoid eating at a restaurant (or two!), my weight will jump up 2 or 3 pounds from the Sunday weigh-in. Part of that is due to the fact that the Sunday weigh-in typically takes place around 11 a.m., and the weigh-ins during the week typically occur around 7 a.m. But whatever the case, my weight jumps at the beginning of the week and then I fight to get it down as the week progresses. Thursday and Friday are two good days, because I have to do my 20 minute power walk back to the train, and it's more difficult to snack in Santa Ana, not having access to a car or the time to go somewhere to get something. Saturday morning usually allows me to go to the gym, and then likewise on Sunday, before that weigh-in. So the week starts rough, and lately has been ending on a relatively good note.

My scale is one of those fancy digital ones that, among other things, calculates BMI, or body fat. Given my size, it's going to be quite some time before my BMI is below "obese" (30% or so, if I remember correctly). But the interesting thing has been watching my body fat measurement each time I weigh myself. My BMI number has been steadily dropping as well. Typically, a gain in weight (such as what I typically experience on a Monday) results in a slightly lower BMI number, due to the "better" weight to Body Mass ratio. That being said, the range of the numbers has dropped over the past month by an average of 1 to 2 percent. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but it works out to be a roughly 4.3 percent drop in body mass. Again, yay me!

So even as my weight does it's yo-yo thing, I can still see that I'm making progress by the fact that my body fat percentage is dropping off. And that is helping me keep going. Good luck out there.

Slowly, we continue the march...

Greetings, my peeps. I hope it isn't too hot where you are...it's somewhat thermal here in SoCal right now, but they are saying the temp is going to drop 10 to 12 degrees tomorrow, which means it will be in the high 70s instead of high 80s/low 90s. Every little bit helps, I suppose, which brings me to the topic at hand: my weight loss.

The progress has been slower than originally anticipated, but dammit, it's still progress! I continued my adherence to the "one little day" concept last week. Last Sunday (5/11), my weigh-in was 281.0 lbs, which led to my weekly loss goal for 5/18 of 279.5 lbs. Lately, Mondays have been good alternate gym days, because DAPGF has been out with friends on those evenings. I get to go to the gym, and eat a Lean Cuisine or two at home instead of going to some restaurant experience that will top 900 calories. Last week wasn't one of those days. Actually, the week wasn't that good for the exercise front in general. The only real exercise I got was my power walk on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday back to the train...the other days of the week, not so much. My daily weigh-in's reflect that pattern, with the weight that goes on from Sunday brunch (the weigh-in is obviously before eating) thru Monday dinner causing an inevitable 2 to 3 pound gain from Sunday to Monday (a weigh-in time that is 3 hours earlier doesn't help), slowly going off as I do my train walks on Thursday and Friday, followed (usually) by a trip to the gym Saturday and Sunday mornings. Same basic thing happened this week, which led to a 5/18 weigh-in of 280.2 lbs. Again, short of the goal by .7 lbs, but it still signifies a loss of .8 lbs for the week. I may not be achieving the individual goals that I set out to achieve, but I am still having positive results on the overall goal of losing weight. Since my recent rededication (my birthday), I'm down 5.2 lbs. Heck, since I started this blog, I dropped almost 11 pounds, gained more than 20 back, but I'm back to a net loss of 3.2 lbs, and actually making steady progress in the correct direction consistently for the first time in a while. And that, my friends, I will take.

Next Sunday (5/25), the goal is 278.7 lbs. See you there.

One Little Day (Revisited)

So. Last week I weighed in at 281.4 lbs, and the weekly goal for today's 1.5 lb loss was 279.9 lbs. The week was pretty mellow, and followed the typical pattern. I ate more than I should've for lunch, but hit the gym when DAPGF went out with friends. Tuesday was an OC day, so I got to do my walk to the train for exercise. DAPGF was teaching, so I was able to control my dinner. Wednesday was neither train, nor gym, nor Lean Cuisine. DAPGF and I went walking for a bit after dinner, which was better than nothing, but didn't really balance out dinner. Thursday I at least had the train for exercise, which when combined with the apres dinner walking gave me some progress. Friday was an interesting day. The train got as far as Irvine, where we were stopped due to a natural gas leak. I caught a bus into Santa Ana, and made it to the office for a few hours. I called both Metrolink and Amtrak before I left to see what the status of things were. Conflicting messages led me to go ahead and walk to the train. Upon arriving there, I got a ride to Tustin and crowded onto a bus to go just down to Irvine, where they told us that the buses might take us southward. Or maybe not. Or maybe trains were running. Who knew. So I finally got to Irvine, only to see the Amtrak train I rode up on in the morning, still there with the crew. I did check, but all the alcohol on the train had been consumed. So I waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour-ish, I started to get hungry. The only non-vending machine food I found was in this little quick wok Chinese joint at the transportation center, and I had some surprisingly delicious lo mein (I <3 pasta, remember). So I waited for a few hours, climbed several flights of stairs several times going from one set of tracks to the other, based on what the non-helpful personnel were telling us. Finally, an Amtrak train came up from Oceanside to take us back into San Diego county. Once in Oceanside, I caught a ride from a very nice young lady back to my car, and made it home just after 8. Normally, I would've been home by 4:30. So no gym, but no snacking and lots of walking around from place to place. Which led to a glorious weigh-in on Saturday that was within spitting distance of my goal...280.0 lbs! Oh so close. But it was not meant to be. DAPGF wanted to go to a sushi buffet for lunch, and then deep fried dinner stuff served to torpedo my phenomenal efforts. Weigh-in on Sunday morning was 281.0. Short of my goal by a pound, but still a net loss for the week. So for the month since my 37th birthday, I've dropped just about 4.5 pounds. Not as much as I'd hoped, but I haven't backslid since then. So I'm going to keep going. Next week's goal, 279.5 lbs. See ya out there!

The One In Which Reality Catches Up...

Hey, I'm only human. I only had one full gym day this week...both Saturday and Sunday were shortened workouts to deal with assorted tasks (hair cut, car wash, etc.). Combine that with a fast food lunch on Monday (hadn't gotten to the store), going out for a wicked large burrito in Santa Ana's ghetto (training a co-worker), and going to DAPGF's favorite tapas buffet on Saturday, and I didn't make my goal weight. For the record, my goal for the Sunday weigh-in was 280.6 lbs, for a 1.5 lb drop from last Sunday. And despite the above, I tried. I ate as conservatively as possible...not always easy with DAPGF wanting to go out for our meals, and we walked after eating as much as DAPGF's flu or whatever would allow. In the end, Sunday's weigh-in was 281.4 lbs., less than 1 pound down from last week.

Now, that was disappointing, but still useful. I did lose .7 lbs for the week, which is still something. More importantly, I was able to identify the specific shortcomings I encountered and can hopefully either avoid them or devise more effective ways to accommodate them while minimizing the damage. I am trying to change my eating habits permanently, and being able to recognize some of the bad habits that I have should help me in being able to devise ways to change them for the better. That being said, my goal for Sunday 5/11 is 279.9 lbs. If I am successful, that will be my first foray below 280 in quite some time. If I were still on schedule, the goal would be 279.1 lbs. And to evoke the margin of error discussed previously, somehwere in the 278 lbs range would be a slick idea. So my official goal is to crack 279 lbs, with the minimum set for 279.9 lbs. Unofficially, I'm going to work extra hard to actually drop below 279 lbs and get somewhere into the 278 lbs range. Despite not achieving my goal, I'm still dropping the weight. I'm going to do my damndest to keep it up.

Good luck, peeps.