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 34, +1 pound

This week was less acceptable. I should have done better. A gain of 2.4 pounds for the month ... take out the Virginia trip and it's a loss of 0.6 pounds, but if I did things correctly this week, I'd have balanced that out.

Time to refocus.

Weigh-in: Week 33, +3 pounds

Falling behind, so I'll make these quick. This week was understandable, somewhat: it was my four-day Virginia visit. Granted, two days were spent on the road, but still, I could have eaten quite a bit less. (Far too much sugar, quite a bit too much meat, not much in the way of vegetables.)

It's acceptable for a once or twice a year thing, but even with that, it's work I have to redo. However, it can still be done if you're careful the rest of the year. I'm not there yet.

Weigh-in: Week 29, +1.6 pounds

Not such a good week last week. Okay, maybe a little of it was having people over to play The Beatles: Rock Band and eating some of the food they brought, but it was also not having the right foods around the house.

With Week 30's weigh-in right around the corner, I suspect I'll likely gain rather than lose this week too. Potentially I could still break even for September, but it's really just been one (or two) bad weeks. So I'll have to focus more on eating better and exercising more. (Bonus: my current contract is with a company downtown, so as long as the weather isn't terrible, I can walk to lunch.)

I need to restock my food here so that I'm eating better foods. I know that is part of it. I can feel myself hungry for the wrong things because I don't have enough good choices here.

Still, I've made a lot of good progress, and I need to keep focused on that. I just put a bunch of slacks in the Goodwill pile: basically everything that I bought when I was getting bigger is now big enough that I can't even keep them up well with a belt. And I saved the old ones, so really I just swapped the two piles. If I can put in a little bit more work each week, it won't be long until I can switch into maintenance mode ... and maybe go shopping!

Weigh-in: Week 24, +0.8 pounds

Sorry, busy week, plus I had to get the right amount of gaming in, and honestly I'm still not a big fan of talking about myself (which makes the idea of a blog somewhat ironic until you realize I really don't post that much about myself). So anyway, up only a little bit, which actually is a major accomplishment considering that on one of the days in question I went to an all-you-can-eat churrascaria, although honestly it was more accurately all-they-care-to-bring-us, because we were served much more slowly in the past. (Fine with me, I wasn't overly full when we left.) Now, I did walk quite a bit, but then I also sat a lot, and I ate food that wasn't always that good for me.

So a little weight gain is understandable, although less than desirable when you realize that the six-month weigh-in is the 26th (which, of course, is "tomorrow" as I am writing this). Then again, I deliberately chose a long-term, maintainable plan rather than a short-term, high-weight-loss plan. I have to say I like the results so far, even if I'm not going to lose 7.8 pounds by tomorrow.

Weigh-in: Week 18, +1.8 pounds

No surprise here. This was the week of the party in Virginia, where there is more food than a normal person can possibly imagine. While I may get partial credit for not actually gorging myself, clearly I consumed a lot more calories that I burned. (Note: shoveling gravel does not equal burning massive amounts of calories, not when you only have the stamina and strength to do it for an hour or so.)

Let's see. I ate french fries, onion rings, popcorn chicken, Mongolian beef, Korean beef, salmon, sushi, pasta, brisket, ribs, peppered pork, fudge, Rice Krispies treats ... and I only tried about half of the food that was there. (I mean, really, is there room for all of it?) My friends are excellent cooks, and the ones that host the party grow their own herbs, peppers, and vegetables, at least some types of vegetables. (And by peppers I mean the kind that you have to pick wearing gloves. No, really. Also, detergent is good for removing the oil from your skin.)

And there were donuts on the way out. And McDonald's. And Wendy's. (Although I did bring protein bars with me.)

So it could have been a lot worse, or maybe I'm starting to figure out how to eat bad foods occasionally and not gain as much weight as I would in the past. (That's right. In the past, this would have been more like 3 or 4 pounds, except for the time that we all got food poisoning from something.)

So now it's off to exercise again. Volleyball is moving off the schedule, though. We just don't have enough people with enough free time to make it a regular thing, so I'll have to visit the Y more often. No, really.

Weigh-in 12: +0.5 pounds

Sorry, this is very late ... ems bugged me about it Friday or maybe even Thursday and I ended up forgetting again.

Anyway, this was the last of the official weekly weigh-ins. The next official one is the 24th, three weeks from tomorrow. We're doing unofficial weigh-ins weekly, to keep the rhythm going, so I'll continue to blog weekly.

My home numbers are staying pretty consistent, so I'm not too worried. As we getting into biking some more, that'll be more burned calories, plus I have three volleyball matches tomorrow (two of them are fours).

Overall, 13 pounds in 12 weeks. Mostly consistent, no really bad weeks, not the pace I'd hoped to set, but then again, I haven't tried to set a faster pace, so I'm getting out just what I'm putting in.

We'll see if I can drop 4-5 pounds a month ...

Weigh-in 7: +0.5 pounds

No big surprises here: I didn't exercise much, I had at least one evening (poker night) where I wasn't as careful as I could have been (although I was pretty good), and I didn't get as much sleep as I should. I didn't do what I needed to do and the results bore that out.

Then again, I wasn't particularly good and almost maintained. It's possible I could have another 3.5-pound week next week. Also, my home numbers have stayed the same or dropped a touch, and I lost another &14frac; inch from my waist, which is really my big concern. If my waist gets down to where it ought to be (which is, um, I don't know ... 34?), we'll see where my weight and body fat are.

Overall, I earned what I got and I'm not too worried. I feel good about the choices I've been making ... while the contest only runs through August (I can't win the February prize, so I'm not that worried about that part; if we get a reward for maintaining at or below our goal weight, that's a little different), this is more about changing life habits, and so far that's working out pretty well for me.

Weigh-in 4: +0.5 pounds

So, not my best effort ... but if you will indulge me, I did have two unexpected events this weekend, and I did choose poorly at times when I was there.

On the other hand, I was "too tired" to work out Monday night. (I did nap for about 90 minutes, but it wasn't like I couldn't have pulled out Wii Fit afterward.)

Besides, I know that I'm making progress. One of the things about weighing myself in the afternoon (we have morning and afternoon weigh-ins to catch people on either side of the workday; I pick afternoon because getting here early is not my idea of fun) is that I know it'll be more variable: what I had for lunch, how I've been drinking water, etc. But when I weigh myself at home, it's in the morning, and I do use Wii Fit often enough that it gives me a decent picture.

Still, it would have been nice to hold steady last week ... then again, I weighed myself here at work this morning, and I was 3.5 pounds under what I weighed yesterday. :)