Weight Tracker - Week 6

The slide continues . . .



With this week's one-pound loss, I have officially surpassed my Lenten goal of 10 pounds and have a week left to go. To use a word I learned from my friend John, "Woot!"

On Saturday I did something I've never done before. I bought clothes at a vintage clothing store. It was fantastic going into a store to buy clothes without having to look for a "big and tall" section. I bought a pair of jeans that make my ass look amazing. I didn't fully realize how much bigger my old jeans were making me look in the pelvis/thighs area until I put these bad boys on. They are a bit tight, but I'm beginning to embrace tight clothes. There was a time when I avoided fitted clothing, especially pants, because these pieces were unflattering on me. Now tighter pants actually take weight off instead of seeming to put it on. It's an exciting change, and I have to resist the urge to go out and replace my entire wardrobe all in one fell swoop. There is only so much money in the clothing budget.

Next week will be the final installment in the Lenten series. Stay tuned to see how it all turns out!

Weight Tracker - Week 5

Not that I'm complaining, but there seems to be a pattern here.



This week's total is 1.5 pounds. This is actually a pretty good thing, since healthy weight loss is supposed to average between 1 and 2 pounds per week. At this rate, it will take me another 19 weeks to reach my goal weight. That puts me at my goal weight towards the end of August. It also puts me ahead of my Lenten goal of 10 total pounds by 2.5 pounds (I've currently lost 9.5 pounds). Of course, this may start varying week-by-week, so it's certainly not a fait accompli. However, I am very encouraged.

Life has otherwise been a little crazy. I'm hoping to take this weekend to catch up on some things in my life that I've let lapse a bit, including blog updates. There is much to tell.

Weight Tracker - Week 4

We're at the midway point, and so far progress is still better than expected.

Another 1.5 pounds have come off in the past week, bringing the net total for these four weeks to 8 pounds even. I'm already to the point that my jeans, previously getting a little tight, are starting to feel loose again. I've found that roughly every 10-15 pounds represents a waist size reduction, so I may be in the market for some new jeans very soon!

I was talking to my friend Ciahnan last night about my weight loss and strategies for losing the last big chunk of weight I want to lose, which is about 25-30 more pounds. He made an interesting point, one that I brought up in my previous post, reminding me that the body is amazingly well adapted to expending as little energy as possible to produce the maximum effect. So, all this time I've been sitting on a recumbent bike my body has been finding ways to pump those pedals harder while using fewer calories.

So next week I'm getting off of the bike and trying new pieces of equipment. This works out well because I've agreed to take part in a 5K next month - a first for me - and I've been debating whether to run it or walk it. I think that I may spend a couple of non-sequential weeks on the treadmill, seeing if my body can tolerate running that long a distance. (I can easily walk 5k, which is just over 3 miles.)

Posts have been light this week because I've been crazy busy. There's lots of stuff running through this old noggin', and I hope to be espousing bleeding-heart liberal propaganda very soon! Stay tuned!

Weight Tracker - Week 3

Despite my continuing abysmal gym attendance record, I'm still shedding pounds.



Two more pounds saw fit to pack their s*it and leave, so I'm quite pleased. Since the beginning of Lent I've lost 6.5 pounds. I set my goal as 10 pounds by the end of Lent, and we're not even to the halfway point yet (that would be roughly Lent 4, a week from Sunday) so I am thrilled at my progress so far. It's amazing how fast the weight comes off once I return to my more disciplined ways.

In previous attempts to lose weight I hit plateaus after the first few months. This has happened multiple times in the past two years. In the past failing to lose weight for a few weeks would simply derail my entire effort and I'd eventually gain back every ounce that I'd lost. And, as if the weight had been placed into a high-yield savings account - the adipose tissue version of ING Direct, I guess - I got back a few extra pounds as well. Yippee!

This time I faced the fact that at each plateau I had to do something different to force my body to continue burning fat. Caloric restriction, for most people, only goes so far. Evolution has fine-tuned the human metabolism to take full advantage of the calories we're given. It seems that the body will often adapt to reduced caloric intake by decreasing basal metabolism. Exercise, especially aerobic and isometric (resistance) exercise, seem to help maintain and even increase basal metabolism even in the face of reduced caloric intake. Recent reports dispute the veracity of this claim, but since nutrition science seems to be about as constant as a fickle lover I'm not prepared to abandon this idea.

I know that exercise is critical for my own weight loss, so I have got to carve out more gym time if that trend line is to maintain its current trajectory. Speaking of which, what am I doing sitting here typing? That only burns 102 calories an hour! And I'm nowhere near my target heart rate!

Weight Tracker - Week 2

Despite having made it to the gym only one day this week, I was greeted by a happy scale this morning.



I've lost another 3 pounds since last week, so I'm very pleased!

I had hoped to post an entry this week about my weight loss story, but other things have taken priority (hello, the Oscars!) I will start that process soon, but as an entrée I'm posting this picture of myself at (approximately) my heaviest. This picture was taken about 3 years ago.



In this picture I weighed over 300 lbs. Black may be slimming, but it's not magic. It would be another year - and another 10 lbs. or so - before I'd actually start the long journey of shedding these excess pounds. Look for the story in the next week!

Weight Tracker - Week 1

I stepped onto the scale this morning and was greeted by the loss of 1.5 pounds. Considering that I had a healthy Mardi Gras weekend (which means I ate like a condemned pig), this is encouraging! Here are the data:

As promised, there are no absolute weight values (yet). It's all about trend, folks!

For next week's update I'll have been back on my regimen for over a week. If things happen as they did the last time I got strict I expect to lose at least three pounds by next Friday. If I don't I won't be crestfallen, though. Between now and then I'll begin telling the story of my lifelong struggles with weight. But not today - I've gotta work for a living!