lose 50 pounds

Starting over essentially from scratch.

I haven’t been paying as much attention since early December, and I’ve gained back 7 pounds. Needless to say, I’m not pleased about that.

I seem to be slowing down from one month to the next, and it’s getting a bit frustrating. September was good for 3 pounds. In October I only managed two.

I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think it’s time to take a closer look.

This goal could really tie in with another on my list: “Be more patient”.

September’s chart is bumpy, and it’s not nearly the precipitous drop that I saw in July. I’ve been frustrated with my progress all month long. This morning, though, I noticed something: despite the apparent ups and downs, despite the fact that it’s neither a smooth curve nor a steep one, I did lose 3 1/2 pounds in September. I’m not progressing as quickly as I’d like, but that’s still progress.

In my profession as a computer programmer, impatience is a virtue. I need to remember, though, that that doesn’t make patience a vice — it’s just a different virtue, and in this case it may be the more appropriate one to exercise.

August wasn’t terrible, I suppose — I lost about 5 pounds during the month, so at least there was some progress — but it certainly wasn’t as good as I had hoped. Looking at the graph for the month, there are a couple of weeks in the middle where it’s essentially flat.

Still and all, I’m getting close — about 10 pounds to go to reach the 50 mark, although I’ll probably actually shoot for 60 rather than 50 in the end.

Most of July went OK, but the beginning and the end weren’t so good. Fortunately, things seem to be back on track so far in August.

I seem to have a natural stable point around 230 pounds. I finished June just above 226, but this week’s daily weights went up every day, topping out over 230 again, and even the moving average line went flat for a couple of days. The weekend was much better, though, ending up with a new record low on Sunday.

One of the keys to success at any goal is to keep track of your progress. It’s easy, especially with a goal like this one, to get frustrated and think you’re not getting anywhere, when in fact things are going very well. I’ve caught myself several mornings complaining that today’s weight is the same as yesterday’s, or even a little bit more. The overall trend is much better than that. (I really like the online weight tracking tool I’m beta testing, partly because it draws charts like this every day :)

I weighed in this morning at 234. I’m pretty pleased with that progress — it’s about halfway, if I decide to stop at 50 pounds, although I’m thinking I may go for 60 instead.

Better than that, though, some friends who I hadn’t seen in a couple of months commented last week that I looked like I’d been losing weight. Apparently there’s noticeable progress, when you look from the perspective of someone who doesn’t see me every day :) This is encouraging.

If I’m to believe my scale, I’m down to 248 (from 260 at the start of this whole exercise). That seems like pretty good news.

The only problem is, I don’t trust this scale. I can step off, step right back on and get a different reading, varying by a few pounds in either direction. Still, the variance isn’t enough to account for a 12 pound difference, so I guess the news is still good :)