Weigh-in: Week 36 through Week 40, +0.6 pounds

So I fell behind a little bit, as I tend to do on long-term projects, and rather than making up five weeks of paragraphs, here we are:

Week 36: +1.2 pounds
Week 37: +2.2 pounds
Week 38: -1.4 pounds (actually this was on Thursday, I forgot to weigh myself Wednesday)
Week 39: +0.2 pounds
Week 40: -1.6 pounds

Basically, in early November I fell into a trap of eating potato chips and stuff like that with lunch. Caught that, turned it around, and then later in the month as work slowed down, my weight began to stabilize. It was neutral the first week in December and has been dropping since then; as you can see, yesterday's weight was almost where I was back in late October.

With the slowdown in contract work, I may not be ready to purchase my reward if I do earn it; then again, I'm also eating more carefully in part because I'm at home, so there are good parts and bad parts to it.

I feel like I'm focused again, so we'll see how the next couple of weeks go.

Weigh-in: Week 35, -2.4 pounds

Back on track. One week of behaving myself and I've undone the October damage. Now I just need to stay focused and get down to where I need to be. 160 is definitely possible by the end of the year.

I'm resetting my goal. 160 by December 31. Obviously August is well past. If at first you don't succeed, try again. Granted, 5.4 pounds in roughly 8 weeks should be easy enough, but the pounds at the end aren't always as easy as the pounds at the beginning.

Weigh-in: Week 32, -1 pound

Not sure how to explain this one, except maybe that I've been adding too much salt to my diet and I've been retaining more water than I normally would, up until today, that is. The last week or so I was moving back and forth between 165 and 166, and then this morning it was 163.8, the lowest I've been to date and down a full pound from last week.

Unfortunately I was also that low about a month ago (but midweek so it doesn't count toward a weigh-in), so in essence I've held steady the last 30 days or so. You can tell I'm falling back because I'm down "only" 28.2 pounds in 32 weeks, and for a while I was right at one pound per week. So basically the good days (walking to lunch, etc.) canceled out the bad days (Shrimpfest 2009, Rock Band, and so on).

And now I'm going back to Virginia for a few days. The last time I did that, it took me a few days to get back on track. I'll have to be careful this time. And then there is another Rock Band night the following week, Halloween after that (yeah, no extra candy in this house ... kids are getting handfuls, I think).

Don't know how much longer I'll be working downtown. The contract is technically through the end of the month, we'll see after that ... I'm not saying I'll walk to lunch no matter what the weather is like, but I can certainly walk in the cold.

Weigh-in: Week 31, -0.6 pounds

Pretty remarkable, considering that a) on Saturday we went to Red Lobster for my birthday dinner, and I had two Cheddar Bay biscuits (or three, honestly I forget), about 50 shrimp, mashed potatoes, rice, and most of a piece of key lime pie; b) on Sunday we went to the Ale for football (I had a burger with bacon and cheese, but chips with that), although I didn't eat too much the rest of the day; and c) with work I have not been spending a lot of time at home awake. Then again I've been walking to lunch almost every day, so that's probably a mile each day (about half a mile each way or thereabouts, at least on average).

Next week is the Virginia trip, well, next weekend, so it'll hit Week 33 and not Week 32. But this kind of thing happens every year. Part of maintaining a healthy weight is doing so no matter what time of the year it is. I think I'll be all right this time.

I like weeks where I think I've done poorly and I haven't. Usually it's because I'm worried about my habits (a good thing) and have been careful despite my fears (also a good thing). Occasionally it's an anomaly.

One of my friends suggested getting a bike trainer for the winter months. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I want to spend the money. I can't yet say that I would use it that much. I would probably get more long-term use out of some kind of lifting equipment ...

I'm just rambling now. Fini.

Weigh-in: Week 28, -1.4 pounds

This was an interesting week because over the weekend, it looked like I might be gaining this week. It wouldn't have been a surprise, considering that this was the opening weekend of the NFL season, I was going out on Saturday to watch college football, and I do like my football, except that with all this in mind I was still eating carefully. (Remember, daily weighing means that you'll see temporary fluctuations in either direction.)

But then the weekdays arrived and normalcy returned. Either that or ... never mind. Anyway, yesterday was kind of funny. I noticed two things: in the evening, I was really, really hungry, and around 10 or so, I felt a migraine approaching. I thought about the combination of hunger and migraine and wondered if perhaps something was amiss.

I counted through the day's food (I don't log any more): protein bar, toast, hamburgers, corn and peas ... um ... um ... fiber bar ... and I came up with 1400 calories, rounding up. When your daily allotment is 2000, that's a pretty significant difference, especially considering I had about 400 at "dinner". So I figure my body was panicking, knocking stuff off shelves and jumping up and down on the bed trying to get me to feed it. I ate another protein bar, took some Advil, and that seemed to fix the situation. It did serve as a reminder that I do need to plan my eating better ... it's great that I have all these 200-calorie pieces that I can assemble for meals, but I still need 10 of them a day.

So anyway, it looks like I need to go to Kohl's and hit their sale. (Hopefully my card is for an additional 30% off. I always seem to get the low discounts.) As much as I like the loose-clothing look, the vast majority of jeans that I have just aren't going to cut it any more. My goal is in sight, less than 4 pounds away.

Weigh-in: Week 27, -0.4 pounds

Yeah, this is a week late. oops. I'll keep it short and sweet and catch up today. The weight loss itself is a little troubling, as that makes two weeks with a total of less than a pound, but I also lost half an inch on my waist in that time, so it may be a little bit of muscle rather than fat (but only a little, I'm not doing that much regularly) or maybe it's just how things are working out right now.

I'm going through another light work period, so again I don't have any external cues for eating. We'll see how next week turns out. (Well, it's actually this week, so I'm not exactly using foreshadowing, am I?)

Weigh-in: Week 26, -0.4 pounds

Not a bad week, considering that for the first time in months, I was actually working on-site rather than remotely. True, it was only for two days, but that meant two days of planning my eating before I left the house. It didn't go too poorly (I did lose a bit), but I was actually lighter than that earlier in the week.

Candace and ems and a few other are doing a health challenge among themselves this month: points for tracking what you eat, staying within your calorie limit, drinking water, losing pounds, etc. Working as part of a group is a good idea, but I wonder about competition sometimes (before you accuse me of hypocrisy, I'd like to point out that I chose a sustainable weight-loss pattern rather than one that would be more likely to keep me in contention). It works for some people, but I think there is a chance that with others, struggling in the contest may cause them to think about giving up entirely. With a mentor, though, you could probably overcome those obstacles, and then the competition might provide you with the kick you need to really start making progress on your own.

Hopefully they all see good results. It's a month-long contest, which means I'll be older when they are finished. ha ha. Hopefully I will be lighter too.

Weigh-in: Week 25, -1.8 pounds

SO ... here we are. August 26 (not today, silly, obviously I rarely end up posting on weigh-in day; I blame volleyball), the "target date" for the original plan. If there is wiggle room, it's this: in the contest, there are two sets of prizes (for which I'm no longer eligible), one for percentage of body weight through the 26th, and one for percentage of body weight through the incentive meeting in February. (Also possibly auxiliary prizes for anyone hitting their goal and maintaining through the February meeting.)

On the other hand, I'm very good at aiming high and shooting low, so perhaps I should get less credit. Anyway, for this "final" weigh-in, I weighed 166. Total weight loss: 26 pounds. Not bad for 25 weeks. Goal to lose: 38 pounds. (Remember, the 160 was "work weight", roughly translating to 154 at home.)

I chose the "safer" route, using a plan that would be sustainable long-term; other people chose to hit it hard, lose the weight first, and then go back to maintenance mode. Either way is cool, mine just worked better for me, I think, based on what I've tried in the past (and obviously failed to maintain).

To hit my reward goal, I need to lose 6 pounds. To hit my numeric goal, 12 pounds. (Compromise, my friends. Compromise. As a famous tiger philosopher once said "Hold fast when you can and compromise when you have to.") That will probably be around Thanksgiving, although I do seem to eat less when I'm working at home. I may very well hit 160 by my birthday, so maybe a Kindle will be a good "birthday" present for me, we'll see, but I am going to keep working. Honestly, 160/154 was an arbitrary number. Realistically, I'd like to reach a point where I'm carrying a healthy weight and can sustain it with a reasonable lifestyle. Whether that's 155, 150, or what, I don't know ... in part because I haven't been this light since ... well ... I don't know. Probably college. I'm fairly sure I dropped to the high 160s during the Discovery Health Challenge we did a few years back, and the other weight loss times were in college and just after.

Then there was high school, but when I weighed 145 I could barely lift 40 pounds and carrying it was obvious effort. We don't need to go back to those days. (Thus more uncertainty about a good weight. I'd like to add a reasonable amount of muscle, in part to help with metabolism, and of course that may add a few pounds back on.)

We shall see. I'll keep logging until I hit 154. After that, who knows?

But enough about me. Can I tell you about my soccer team? You see, I manage Cambridge City, and they've just been promoted to Conference South, and ... hello? hello?

Weigh-in: Week 23, -2.0 pounds

So, another successful week. Yes, the first few days I had a cold or the flu or something, and I dropped weight right away, but then my appetite came back on Friday, and I fed it, and I did not regain the weight. (And we played volleyball for two hours on Sunday. That helped a lot. My monitor estimated 1800 calories burned.)

I think I misinterpreted something that ems mentioned this week ... anyway, she pointed out that being unemployed is actually a good thing when it comes to weight loss, and she's right. The biggest thing that changes is that you no longer have false cues for meals: it doesn't matter that it's 11:30, or noon, or whenever "lunch hour" is. You're hungry, you eat lunch.

Plus you don't have people always saying "let's go out and eat" (and to be honest, I am one of those, although at least now I eat more sensibly), so you can save some cash too.

My corporate membership at the Y is gone, which is just as well because it never really was something that worked well for me. As much as I like working out (sometimes), it just doesn't seem to integrate easily. I'll have to add some muscle, I think, so I'll have to clean up my weight room or do some smaller exercises in the living room. Maybe I need to revisit Wii Fit. (My "deadline" on it passed without me reaching my goal, but I am getting down toward that nice little 25 BMI.)

I may actually end up pretty close to 160 in a couple of weeks. Of course my target should be 154 (the "work weight" thing, you know), but I think it's just as reasonable to celebrate losing 32 pounds. I'll keep working at it until I reach a stable weight, so we'll see if that's something with a 5 or a 6. I haven't been this light in a long time, so I'm not sure exactly how much lower I can go.

Weigh-in: Week 22, -1.2 pounds

A decent week, although I am wondering if perhaps some of this is coming from whatever I may be coming down with ... nonetheless, I'll take it. Weight under 170 for the first time in a long time. My waist is shrinking reasonably well, and my clothes are fitting better (well, some of them are going in the other direction and will be replaced by smaller clothes).

I'm really not doing much weight training, though, so I need to start on some of that. It'll be easier to maintain a lower weight if I can get my metabolism up in part by adding muscle. Not much, just a reasonable amount ... I don't care to look like a weightlifter, but I would like to have reasonable upper-body strength.

Weight training would slow the weight-loss process and perhaps raise the "floor" (the lowest reasonable weight I could maintain), but that's fine. 154 was a number I picked out of thin air. If I can maintain a healthy weight at 164, that's fine too.

Weigh-in: Week 21, -0.6 pounds

As predicted (a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course), not quite on that pace to lose 10 pounds in a month. Still, 170.2 at the end of July is good - 21.8 pounds in total.

I should probably work on posting regularly, though. It makes it difficult to remember why I might be above or below average for a week.

Weigh-in: Week 20, -2.2 pounds

Now last week, there was more progress. Down below 171 for the first time in a long time, which puts me over 20 pounds lost in total. Now, I may not reach my goal (I'd need to drop 10.8 pounds in five weeks, which is possible but not reasonable given my progress to this point), but I've definitely made a significant difference so far.

I ended up agreeing to play on a team of four for the second volleyball session, which means that I'll get a bit more exercise than I did the first session on a team of six ... that won't hurt, even though it's basically going to be one hour per week.

More progress to come, hopefully. Next week would be the end of the second month of weigh-ins, so I've got one month after that before the end of the main part of the contest. The second part is technically maintenance, although the prize at the end still goes to the greatest weight loss over the entire time. (I think a better prize would have been to lock in people's weights in the August weigh-in and make it truly about maintenance; they could then reward everyone who weighed no more than they did in August. Of course it doesn't matter now that I'm not eligible myself ...)

Weigh-in: Week 19, -0.6 pounds

Catching up ... there really hasn't been much to report recently, or maybe I've been distracted by the inability of people to decide they want me to do work for them.

Anyway, for Week 19, not much progress; still hadn't made up for the trip to Virginia. No big deal, though. I'm still eating right and exercising a decent amount. The weight will start to come off again when I do those things more regularly. (I suppose that could qualify as foreshadowing.)

Weigh-in: Week 17, -1 pound

More good news: down a pound this week (18.1 overall) and half an inch on my waist (4 overall). I gave up on the thigh for now because a) there isn't a ton of fat there anyway and b) it's difficult to measure accurately. Besides, I have strong legs, so they're not going to shrink much even when my weight does come down.

So anyway, a good week, lots of volleyball and bicycling. This week, however, may be more of a challenge: four days out in Virginia with friends. In the past, I would probably have eaten 20 pounds of food or so in four days. This time, hopefully it will be much less. (I will confess to having donuts from Long's Bakery for breakfast. yum.)

I'm not tracking my calories – too many homemade meals to do accurately anyway – but I am trying to stay conscious of what I eat. The 8th will tell that story.

Either that or I'll be riding a century on the 7th. lol.

Weigh-in: Week 16, -1.6 pounds

This was more like what I was expecting. More exercise, less eating ... eventually it will develop into results. Next week should be good too: tonight I am supposedly playing four hours of volleyball (regular match, makeup match, subbing for two separate four-person teams).

Measurements did not go down, though ... what I figure is that for my waist, I'm slowly getting to the point where I can relax it completely. (Sucking in my stomach as a habit over the years of carrying excess weight leads to it not wanting to relax completely, and that can change it a half-inch or more.) My thigh probably did shrink and I just found the spot that is really the biggest to measure this time. When I did the Discovery Health Challenge, their book suggested that I measure my thigh three inches from the top of my knee, I think, so that I'd get a consistent measurement each time. I might do that, not sure ...

Additional measurements:
waist 39.5 (+0.25, -3.5 total)
thigh 23.375 (+0.125)

Weigh-in: Week 14, -1.5 pounds

A pretty good week this week, but that's to be expected considering that I rode 30 miles on Saturday and didn't crack 2000 calories once, not even on that Saturday. (Context: my target is 2000. Calorie Count estimates that I burn 2320 in a normal day, so from a metabolic perspective, I'd be losing about 0.6 pounds per week plus what I get from exercise.)

At home, I've finally dropped below 175. My waist is still in the neighborhood of 40", which actually is to my benefit in terms of a weight goal, because that suggests I still have a reasonable amount of fat to lose. I would guess I could get down to a 34" waist or so. 160 as a weight goal was somewhat in question, especially as a work weight, because of the weight I would add through muscle, but it seems as though I might get closer to 160 than I thought.

Not as much volleyball this week ... I've yet to play more than one match in a day, and we didn't get a full match in this week because we lost the first two games and couldn't stick around for a third. (Something to keep in mind: if you count team sports as expected exercise, keep in mind that you don't have as much control over the exercise you get ... especially if it's formal competition with a coach and everything. We don't have that.)

I think my summer appetite has arrived. Slightly bigger meals make me feel very full, and some days I just don't feel like eating a ton. If I keep riding and get back to the Y regularly (with hockey ending Friday, I should stop making excuses next week), I might be making some good progress the next few weeks. It'll be interesting to see what I look like for the family reunion in July.

Weigh-in: Week 13, -1 pound

The unofficial weigh-ins begin. I figured this would be a good week from what I'd seen at home, and I was right ... of course I've only lost 0.5 pounds over 2 weeks, but then it could be worse, right?

14 pounds in 13 weeks, just staying ahead of "even". Caught a tough break tonight in terms of weight loss: volleyball was rained out, so zero matches instead of three. Next week we make up our sixes rainout (well, one of them, that leaves this week to make up). Not sure what happens with ems' fours team.

Of course I ended up shopping instead – semi-necessary stuff, that is. Couldn't find our book for book club, but I did pick up a couple of classics (A Separate Peace and Of Mice and Men; I've read the former, don't think I've read the latter) and a teach-yourself-guitar program for the laptop. Then it was off to Costco, which wasn't my fault, it just happened to be on the way home from the bookstore, and I do need to go. (Razor blades. boo.) Now I need a chest freezer.

Looking forward to another good week ... if the rain keeps up, I'll have to hit the Y something fierce. After the Cup finals are over, of course!

Weigh-in 11: -1.5 pounds

Not exactly a breakthrough, but that could be coming ... on the other hand, it matches my weight loss from the last three weeks combined.

This time, I really only changed two things. One was that I was careful about what I ate on the weekend: Friday through Sunday, I ate about 5300 calories, compared to 6900 calories the week before. Granted, those are estimates, but that's about half a pound right there.

The other was that I bought a bike. I determined that the bike in my garage that was the result of drunk shopping was not likely ever to meet my needs, so ems, candace and I went to the store. I played Uncertain Customer while they were Inquisitive and possibly Future Customers. I left with a lighter wallet and a better exercise plan.

In fact, the plan started almost immediately. With no bike racks in stock (good weather = bike-buying season), they couldn't give me an easy way to get the bike home, and Civic Hybrids are not made for carrying any kind of cargo. Fortunately, the bike shop was 1.8 miles from home. (I drove it that night to check out the distance.) I raced for home as ems and candace followed, meeting me at my place so we could go out to eat and then gather cars afterward.

So ... here's this 40-something in a polo shirt, jeans, and loafers, riding a new bike on secondary roads to his house. The last time I rode a bike was, hmm ... something with a 9 in it. Probably two of them. I mean, balance and such was no trouble, and it was late enough that traffic wasn't bad (I figured if my first ride was on the road, anything after that would be easier), but still, it wasn't my finest performance.

I made it home and had time to catch my breath before we ate. I did a bit too much sprinting (not in quite the right gear at times, I'm afraid), but it was fun. We're going riding tomorrow and Sunday, and I'm looking forward to it.

Work weight of 180, here I come ...

Ooh, and I almost forgot. They had a nutritionist here yesterday and I got my blood pressure taken. 124 over 88, which doesn't sound that good (it isn't, borderline hypertension if you take it at face value), but the last couple times I took it at the in-store kiosks, it was higher than that.

Weigh-in 10: -0.5 pounds

Three straight weeks ... on the one hand, I think I'm limiting my caloric intake reasonably. It looks like I'm down to about 2150 calories a day, assuming that I need about 2400 to maintain my current weight. (Sometimes being a guy is nice: higher metabolism, more calories needed.)

On the other hand, Calorie Count thinks I should be around 2000 calories a day, which would cut out about one additional pound every three weeks. Also, the exercise has been tapering off. I keep finding excuses not to work out, although honestly it's almost always poor planning on my part.

Today it's not my fault, though. I will get to exercise, just not as much as I'd planned. With the rainout, instead of volleyball, I get a Y workout. And by volleyball I mean one fours match with one extra (at most) and one sixes match, possibly with extras ... but in any event, lots of cardio. Oh well.

Next week, I have the week of syzygy: volleyball, ColdFusion meeting, and homeowners' association meeting, all at once (literally - it's not even like I could go from a to b to c), and on a day where I have SQL class during the day and then have to drive down here for weigh-in afterward. yuck. It'll probably be the homeowners' meeting. I've lived there almost seven years and haven't been to one yet.

Volleyball will help, that's extra cardio on Wednesdays, especially if I ever do sub on the fours team. I just need to plan my days better, that's all.

And get my bike fixed, for reals. Then I can go riding with my readers. (Isn't that cool? For all you know, it would look like the Tour de France ... well, it will anyway, but more like the time trials than a normal leg.)

Weigh-in 9: -0.5 pounds

Sorry for the late post ... decent progress last week. Definitely reasonable for maintaining a lower weight, and also considering the work I've (not) been doing, but not exactly on target for August.

I mean, I'm not far behind – my weekly pace should be 1.6 pounds – but it doesn't take too many weeks behind pace to really mess you up. (It's like a project.)

So ... part of it is that I'm difficult to motivate. And lazy by nature.

I need to work on that. I did go to the gym last night, and I tried interval training ... I just don't have the stamina to go as hard as I'd like for the intervals. 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off for 30 minutes (starting and ending off to make it work in 30 minutes). Decent workout, probably better than if I'd done my usual.

I need to get my heart monitor fixed (the receiver definitely needs a new battery, the transmitter might as well). The funny thing is that the closest repair place is in Ann Arbor. Of course it's not worth an 8-hour round trip, and I'm not going there until July, which is far too long to wait. Oh well. At least I know where to find them if there are any problems.