Weigh-in Week 26

The Numbers

Starting Weight: 216.8
Weight Last Week: 204.0
Weight This Week: 204.0
Loss This Week: 0.0
Total Weight Loss: 12.8
Pounds Still to Go: 19.0
Trendline Estimate: 203.5

There we go. 204 still. No gain, no loss. But that's great! I started work training for the Census this past week, and for sitting around for about 8 hours a day for three days... it made me hungry. I was afraid I was going to see a gain in weight when I stepped on that scale today. And that was after I was already wary that I might gain some weight because I just lost over 3 pounds the previous week. I knew it was something I was afraid of happening, and still I felt like I ate more than I wanted and would see a gain in weight.

But it turns out that while I didn't meet the goal of losing 1.8 out pounds like I said I wanted to last week, I did meet my first condition of at least not gaining anything. I'm happy with that. No regrets. I still want to drop below 200, and beyond, by my birthday, but this week I can put in the win column.  

Weigh-in Week 25

The Numbers

Starting Weight: 216.8
Weight Last Week: 207.2
Weight This Week: 204.0
Loss This Week: 3.2
Total Weight Loss: 12.8
Pounds Still to Go: 19.0
Trendline Estimate: 203.9

Look at that. 3.2 pounds!  Only in Week 4 did I lose more. I've broken the 205 mark already and it's the first week in a long time that I dipped below that trendline.  I actually only went to the gym once this week as well. Probably not something I should do every week, but I just wasn't feeling that hungry, so I didn't eat all that much.

So what now?  First thing: Don't gain weight. I don't want one of those upward swings to come back. It took 16 weeks total since I first dipped below 210 only to gain, and then finally drop back down. If I can manage to not gain weight, I'd like to lose 1.8 pounds a week from here until my birthday to get down to 195, but getting down to 200 by my birthday will be ok too.

But 195!! I'm only 19 pounds away from my target weight now. Getting down to 195 means more than 50% of the weight I want to lose will be gone!  Getting down to 200 is 25%! I look down and see how much fat is deposited around my stomach, arm pits, and inner thighs, and it's hard to imagine 25% of it gone with just 5 more pounds.

I may have lost 12.8 pounds since I started recording my weight, but there is a good chance it's actually 21 pounds. I once again fit in the lab coat that's in my profile pic, and I was looking at the shirt I was wearing yesterday thinking that maybe it's too big for me now.

So let's see how it goes next week.  This is exciting, I'm hitting the back half of this journey of mine.

Weigh-in Week 24 - 6 Month Update

The Numbers

Starting Weight: 216.8
Weight Last Week: 208.8
Weight This Week: 207.2
Loss This Week: 1.6
Total Weight Loss: 9.6
Pounds Still to Go: 22.2
Trendline Estimate: 204.2

207.2.  That's more like it.  I am now the lightest I've been in 12 weeks.  With just losing 1.2 pounds a week for the next six weeks, I'll reach my latest goal of 200 pounds before my birthday.  That's pretty tight considering the trends in the graph, but doable.  I just have to watch out for any major slips and gains in weight, and then my weight will finally agree with what's on my Driver's License.

It's been 6 months now.  Six months!!  It doesn't really feel like that much time has passed.  And looking at my overall results, it doesn't seem that impressive to me.  But maybe my original goal was too much.  I was able to lose 10 pounds a month for 3 months during summer, when I had no school and no work, and I had 100% focus on losing weight.  This time I'm incorporating losing weight in a life where I'm a student and need energy to learn, study, and focus on exams, where I'm traveling to all the different pharmacy schools and going to all the events I can to do my proper research for applications, in the middle of a job search, and where I don't have as much control over the type of food I'm eating now that I'm at home again.

What has worked is making the excel sheet.  Being able to visualize the up and down trends, and being able to see that even despite that I'm losing weight overall has been a good method for self-motivation.  It's been good at keeping a feeling of failure from taking over and quitting.  That's probably the most important piece to any weight loss or weight maintenance plan.  As long as you can keep up the motivation and have some form of check in place to let you know when you're slipping, the weight will disappear.  It's taking me longer than I wanted, but it will happen.  And a few more months is nothing compared to the years I'll have with the weight off.

Before I wasn't sure how often I was going to post after I reached my target weight, but now I know I'm going to keep on doing this each week.  I'm going to need a method to ensure that I'll know it when I slip back into bad habits.  And not only that, I'll have to learn to adjust to maintaining weight, rather than losing weight.  That'll be an interesting tug-o-war to watch.

Let's hope that next week my total weight lost will finally pass 10 pounds!

Weigh-in Week 23

The Numbers
Starting Weight: 216.8
Weight Last Week: 208.4
Weight This Week: 208.8
Loss This Week: -0.4
Total Weight Loss: 8.0
Pounds Still to Go: 23.8
Trendline Estimate: 204.1

Alright.  Gained some weight again.  But it wasn't too bad.  I read my body's signals right, when I was losing that feeling around my ribs.  I was afraid the gain was going to be more significant than what the scale showed.  The last time I got close to this weight, I gained a lot.

Now what is the reason?  Have I hit a wall that my body doesn't want to get past?  Am I creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?  I went to the gym at least four times this past week.  It might have been five.  I did eat a lot one day during the week, but I don't think I ate all that much during the rest.  What I didn't do was eat a salad every day of the week.  Well... whatever the reason, the gain wasn't all that bad, and I can still make it to 200 by my birthday.

Weigh-in Week 22

The Numbers

Starting Weight: 216.8
Weight Last Week: 209.6
Weight This Week: 208.4
Loss This Week: 1.4
Total Weight Loss: 8.4
Pounds Still to Go: 23.4
Trendline Estimate: 203.8

Alright.  There we go.  Another week of weightloss.  I think I went to the gym four times this week.  In terms of food, it was a combination of good and bad.  I had the $5 box from Taco Bell twice, however, that was nearly all I ate for that whole day, or I ate more than that, but it was also a gym day where the elliptical says I burned 800 calories.  Other days it was eating some cereal, a meal that my dad cooked, and a chinese chicken salad from costco made with a head of romaine lettuce.  I wasn't sure was the results for the week were going to be.  I was hoping that I'd see just a small loss, and I would have been happy with that.  The area around my ribs still have that tighter feeling so I would have been surprised and disappointed if I gained weight.  But 1.4.  Not bad.  I'm happy with that.

And bringing up food again.  While I *am* eating some fast food, the benefits are that I know exactly how many calories are in it, and it has a set portion size.  I think I mentioned this last week, but it's somewhat harder to control my weight living at home again.  My dad enjoys cooking, and those meals don't come in preset servings.  It makes it easy to eat too much and not realize it.  

On a similar note, I love ice cream, but I've decided that in general, I'm no longer going to buy ice cream in half gallon containers.  It's too tempting to eat more than a serving.  I've been eating ice cream sandwiches instead.  Of course there's the option of not eating any ice cream at all, but if it can be done without going overboard, then that's the best possible solution.  And it looks like one ice cream sandwich a day is the key to getting that to work.