The good news is I finally broke out of the long plateau in my weight loss. The less-good news is it took long enough that my weight loss for the month was fairly modest.
But I ended with a flourish, coming in at my lowest weight of the month (157 pounds), with a total loss of 2.6 pounds. I am now exactly seven pounds from my stated goal of 150 pounds. Could I do it by the end of October? Possibly. But November seems more likely.
I’ve been pretty good on snacking and have maintained a regular run/exercise routine, so I am confident I’ll get there, barring a sudden and unexplained addiction to donuts.
Stats:
Weight:
January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
Current: 157 pounds
Year to date: Down 25.8 pounds
September 1: 159.6 pounds
September 30: 157 pounds (down 2.6 pounds)
Body fat:
January 1: 23% (42.1 pounds of fat)
August 31: 17.4% (27.4 pounds of fat--down 14.7 pounds)
I got my fourth COVID-19 shot today. Not the fourth one today, but the fourth since this whole kooky pandemic began. I opted for Pfizer, the devil I know.
The jab was quick and inconsequential, as usual, and my arm is a bit sore as I type this late in the evening. I did get a headache in the afternoon, which is a possible side effect, and was new for me. Not too bad as side effects call, so I merely grumble about it.
The clinic ran things very efficiently–I was in and out before my actual appointment time. Masks were still mandatory, of course, and they made me wait 15 minutes to see if I’d mutate into a super-being (I did not), but there was no real effort at physical distancing, unlike previous times. A decent amount of people were there (I had to stand in line waiting for the clinic to open), but I overheard staff say that this was pretty normal–most go in the morning and the afternoons are quieter.
I want to make a joke or use some metaphor about how the clinic is an old Best Buy, but nothing comes to mind. Have a picture instead.
It was also a warm and sunny early fall day. Having the weather continue to be summer-like is going to make The Rains that much harder to endure when they arrive. Maybe.
Also, here’s a photo of a flower at nearby Holland Park that I took when I realized how absurdly early I was.
After lamenting how my weight hit 160.6 pounds in mid-August, then stubbornly refused to drop below 160 for the rest of the month, I weighed in this morning (September 1) and the scale said…
159.6 pounds
Yay. I feel like my body is pranking me. But it still means I’m now less than ten pounds from my official weight loss goal of 150 pounds. Soon I’ll be able to wear bikinis again without shame!
Or at least take my shirt off without hearing cries of, “Put it back on!” (I am the one making those cries, BTW.)
Good news: I am down again for the month, and ended on a new low for the year.
Bad news: My weight loss plateaued and stalled about halfway through the month.
Ambivalent news: These kinds of plateaus are not unexpected, so I should start dropping again soon unless I suddenly switch to bags of donuts as my primary food source.
On August 16 I hit 160.4 pounds and for the next 15 days my weight ticked up and down until today, when it was…160.4 pounds. The body fat percentage has dropped, though, so I am still shedding the padding.
Overall, I am pleased at the continued weight loss, if slightly frustrated at the last few weeks.
Stats:
Weight:
January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
Current: 160.4 pounds
Year to date: Down 22.4 pounds
August 1: 164.1 pounds
August 31: 160.4 pounds (down 3.7 pounds)
Body fat:
January 1: 23% (42.1 pounds of fat)
August 31: 17.7% (28.4 pounds of fat--down 13.7 pounds)
A few years back, Under Armour sold MyFitnessPal to a venture capitalist firm. Recently, the app (not website) was updated to make the starting screen more convenient for premium users, and…less so for free users (who see ads instead).
I was okay with this, because free is free, and I tolerated the ads on the iOS version. I primarily use the web version, anyway.
However, the company has now announced that the ability to scan barcodes is being locked behind a subscription. It’s not a huge deal for me in practical terms, because I rarely eat new packaged foods that I’d need to scan (I’m trying to eat more natural stuff like fruits and veggies that are not canned, bottled or whatnot), but it’s something I do use occasionally. I find it odd and irritating that MFP would gate this behind a pricey subscription ($20 US per month or $80 US per year), but it’s obvious they are relying on a sizable chunk of its user base to pony up to make mad money from them.
I won’t be paying, and this is further incentive to find an alternative to the app/site, even though I have a streak that spans over 9.5 years:
Apps/sites I am currently mulling:
Cronometer (it seems decent but gates some stuff behind a sub, including a few things that are still free on MFP)
FatSecret (seems good, but the UI is pretty utilitarian)
Macros
Lose It! (yes, they use an exclamation point!)
Others, possibly
I am currently using Noom, which is paid, but that’s only for three months, after which I will drop it–it was more to motivate me to lose weight than to become a permanent diet/exercise tracker. It’s been working, too, or it’s just a fancy coincidence that my weight started dropping a lot more once I started using it.
As of today, I am 160.4 pounds, with a 150 pound goal. On January 1 I was 182.8 pounds. That, on my body, is rather chunky.
I’ll post again after giving some of the alternatives some time. I’m not even opposed to paying on an ongoing basis, but the cost needs to be really reasonable (Noom is not, hence using it strictly as a boost to get started).
When logging into My Fitness Pal to record my food and exercise for the day, I see this under the section for food entries:
The idea that I’ve earned one whole extra calorie to burn as I see fit amuses me. I could make a list of things to do with that single, precious extra calorie:
Exhale
Blink my eyes once or maybe twice
Shift slightly in my chair
Think hard for several seconds
(After a minute or so, MFP synced with my watch and bumped the calorie burn up to something with four digits instead of one.)
What’s weird is the pandemic is very much an ongoing thing. I think the closest it felt to being behind us was right at the start of July 2021. Here in BC daily cases were down to the 30s, with some health regions reporting no new cases. We’d just entered the third stage of a four stage “back to business” plan that saw the mask mandate lifted and most other restrictions eased. The final step was to come September 7th, when remaining restrictions went away, life returned to normal and we could all look forward to watching terrible movies about the pandemic and chuckle together about what a weird time it was!
Of course, what actually happened is the more contagious Delta variant popped up, cases took a huge jump up, restrictions were re-introduced and by mid-August the mask mandate would be back in place and stay there until March 11, 2022.
But here it is August 2022, and we have yet another super-contagious variant running amok, this time Omicron BA.5. Most people have been vaccinated and received at least one booster shot, but the idea of herd immunity is long forgotten, replaced by the acceptance that most people are probably going to catch COVID-19, some multiple times, and hopefully long COVID won’t be as horrible as it might seem.
And yet, with all numbers going in the wrong direction, the general attitude seems to be a collective shrug. Masks remain optional, and mask usage has declined steadily since March. There are very few restrictions, and everyone has basically been told to watch out for themselves (and hopefully others). There has been talk about a possible renewal of the mask mandate in the fall if numbers keep going up, but I don’t see that happening unless hospitals start getting seriously taxed.
It feels like we’ve come to accept COVID-19 as a really persistent flu bug and we’re all just spinning the wheel and taking our chances on if and when we get sick. In a way this isn’t even a bad thing, because we have to move past the pandemic mentality at some point.
But I do wonder when we’ll be able to talk about the pandemic in the past tense. It feels like we’re a long way away right now, and even though life has mostly reverted to what passes for normal, I feel an unease about all of this not quite being over, and what it may hold for the future.
Interestingly, I am down the exact same amount in July as I was in June–4.4 pounds, another month of notable weight loss. Yay.
Even better, I dropped more weight in the final two days after hitting a plateau that lasted a little more than a week.
The continued weight loss can be attributed to a few things:
Lots of exercise. I am running three times a week (each run is a combined 18+ km of walking/running) and I do walks on my non-run days, too. Compulsion to close activity rings on Apple Watch fitness app: Ongoing!
Less snacking overall. Reminding myself to not eat when not hungry (it’s surprising how often we do that.). This is known as fog eating and would go better if you ate actual fog instead of food.
Smarter snacking. I am eating more fruit or doing things like having a serving of non-fat yogurt with blueberries or strawberries mixed in. No more cookies!
Better meals. Saving things like pizza as occasional indulgences rather than having them regularly. I’m sorry, pizza, our torrid affair must remain part-time.
The weight loss is now enough that I can see the downward trend over shorter periods of time. I still find it darkly amusing that the biggest loss happened when I got COVID-19. But unlike other times when illness led to weight loss, I didn’t put the weight back on. Woo.
My Fitbit one-year chart is below. It is a weird coincidence that my weight peaked on January 1 of this year:
On the first day of this chart, I was 176.2 pounds and see-sawed until I celebrated New Year’s with a barrel of donuts, apparently.
Also, looking over the chart again, I seem to have mistyped my weight from January 1, so my weight loss for the year-to-date is even better than I originally thought. I have corrected the January stats below.
Stats:
Weight:
January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
Current: 163.8 pounds
Year to date: Down 19 pounds
July 1: 168.2 pounds
July 31: 163.8 pounds (down 4.4 pounds)
Body fat:
January 1: 23% (42.1 pounds of fat)
July 31: 18% (29.5 pounds of fat--down 12.6 pounds)
Are you a fan of doomscrolling? Can anyone be said to be a fan of doomscrolling? When I was a kid, I had to wait for the nightly news or go read a newspaper (the kind printed on actual newsprint) to catch the latest doom and its pal, gloom.
And believe me, there was plenty of doom to be had. I grew up during the Cold War (well, the first one, anyway) and the specter of actual nuclear war was always there in the background. There were also concerns over the environment (the Careers board game, which I loved, added Ecology as a career path. It’s probably been replaced by Entrepreneur or something now) and pollution, and wars and terrorism across the world were pretty common.
But at least we didn’t have any pandemics, and climate change didn’t yet feel like an existential crisis.
However, this post isn’t about doom. It’s about not despairing, just like it says in the title. For all the horrible things in the world, remember that we still have:
Kittens
Puppies
Baby ducks
Pancakes
Bicycles
Friends
People who can make words and/or pictures sing
Modern medicine, which is pretty nifty when you think about it
Smart people still working hard to help make the world better
Sunrises and sunsets
And Voyager I and II, launched in 1977, are still transmitting data!
It is breathtakingly easy to fill yourself full of bad news if you have a working internet connection, and that’s just not good for the mind. I don’t think we’ve evolved (or may ever evolve) to where we can subject ourselves to near-constant negativity and remain mentally and emotionally healthy. So I’m willing to do my tiny part in making the world better. I recycle. I treat the environment with respect. I adore kittens.
Apply the sunblock before it feels like your skin is burning. That way, your skin won’t actually get sunburned.
I learned this lesson today when I decided it would be “smart” to not apply sunscreen early in the morning before spending basically the entire day out in the sun. Whoopsie. I suppose it could have been worse, and I did get some nice photos while out singing my skin.
After a month of standing still, my weight was on the move again, and this time in the right direction–down!
I even had a nice bonus of dropping a little on the last day of the month after hitting a new low, so it looks even better. In June, I lost 4.4 pounds, my best results for the year to date, and Fitbit now regards my weight as “normal” instead of overweight. As of today, I have 18.2 pounds to go to reach my target of 150 pounds, which I think I can hit by the end of summer. The start of summer would have been my preference, but clearly I did not hit my groove until this month. What changed? Let’s make a list!
Less snacking overall
Healthier snacking. I’m eating things like bananas and grapes instead of cookies and brownies
More exercise. I am back to running three times a week, and usually get in some exercise in my “off” days in the form of walks and such
A few tweaks to what I eat during meals, though I’ve been trying to keep those on the leaner, healthier side for a while
Overall, I am pleased with the results. I make no prediction for July, other than being down again. It would be nice to hit 160, but that would mean about two pounds of weight loss per week. It’s theoretically possible, but I think it’s more likely to continue to be closer to one pound, meaning I should be around 164 or thereabouts on July 31. We’ll find out soon™.
Stats:
Weight:
January 1, 2022: 180.6 pounds
Current: 168.2 pounds
Year to date: Down 12.4 pounds
June 1: 172.6 pounds
June 30: 168.2 pounds (down 4.4 pounds)
Body fat:
January 1: 23.2% (42.1 pounds of fat)
June 30: 19.9% (33.7 pounds of fat--down 8.4 pounds)
Last month I decided to start keeping a diary, or journal, if you prefer. I’m using the Diarium app, mainly because it is cross-platform and can sync across OneDrive, so I can pour out my soul from any convenient device! I could have used an actual paper version, but paper is for the Amish. I’m all about the tech, baby.
I still think Diarium sounds way too close to diarrhea, but the best name, Day One, was already taken.
So far I have managed to write something every day for the past 21 days (including today), which technically means I’ve made it a habit. Go me. Most of it has been nonsense and I’m still trying to figure out what to put there vs. what to put here, on the blog.
I’m also thinking of changing the blog in some big ways. See below!
Possible Big Ideas for This Blog:
A new name and URL. No more creolened.com, since what does it even mean, anyway?
Splitting off the run/fitness stuff because, really, no one else should or would care about this. This might be more useful in the actual diary, perhaps as dedicated entries.
And so forth.
Anyway, I’ll follow up on the diary stuff soonish. I may even switch to a different app (Journey, Obsidian, etc.), who knows? I am unpredictable as all get out.
