It shouldn’t take much effort to lose weight in January because I tipped the old-e-scale at a hefty 174.2 pounds this morning.
I’m blaming the mid-evening pizza. And chocolate milk. And general lack of activity.
But this year will be different!
In theory.
Also, these are healthy because they’re “low fat”, right? I’m buying a case of them at Costco to help me lose weight this year.
Well, poop.
The bad news is I did gain weight both for the month and the year (I jumped 0.8 pounds overnight, which didn’t help).
The good (?) news is that the wright gain was only 1.7 pounds. Stretched over a year, this is pretty close to a rounding error, albeit a big, pudgy one.
The definitely not good news is that I went from 36.1 pounds of body fat to 39. I have been trading my muscle for fat, which would be great if I was a bear and planning to hibernate through the winter.
For 2021, it will not take much effort to improve. When I look back on the year, I can see that I managed to get into a holding pattern, so if I nudge myself a little, and apply some consistency, I may actually see my weight not only drop below 170 pounds again, but possibly keep dropping.
A boy can dream.
As my resolutions post attests, though, I am aiming at a more modest goal of 160 pounds for 2021–I officially have 13.5 pounds to go.
The stats:
December 1: 171.6 pounds December 31: 173.5 pounds (up 1.9 pounds) Year to date: From 171.8 to 173.5 pounds (up 1.7 pounds) And the body fat: December 1: 22.1% (38 pounds of fat) December 31: 22.5% (39 pounds of fat) (up 1 pound)
Just kidding. Most of the news lately is pretty terrible, with cases skyrocketing all over the place. Forty-six people died in BC just over the past weekend. Granted one of them was 103 years old, but still.
The two bright spots are local mask usage (now mandatory in all public indoor spaces) is pretty high and there are multiple vaccines that appear to be effective and may start getting distributed as early as the spring. Yes, it’s only fall now, but in pandemic time, the spring feels a lot closer than it actually is.
Some have referred to those who refuse to wear masks as “maskholes” but I don’t like it. It’s the wrong combination of cutesy and angry.
And speaking of masks, today I got the pair of masks I ordered from Outdoor Research–yes, the place that is also soon delivering me my jaunty yellow cap. They are almost but not quite too big (I have a small face), but they actually look nice, feel good and can be equipped with paper filters for better protection. I can’t say I’m excited to wear one, but I’m pretty sure it will be an improvement over what I’m using now.
This concludes YAPP (Yet Another Pandemic Post). I really hope in November 2021 I will not have any need or desire to discuss a pandemic.
Being down for the month might be cause for celebration normally, but alas, these are not normal times.
As it turned out, I porked up right at the start of the month, which meant being down was a pretty easy goal as long as I didn’t switch to an all-donut diet (which I did not).
I only managed to stay under 170 pounds three times during the month, a dismal showing after October. There was snacking. Plentiful snacking.
I’m going to try to go completely snack-free in December. Such an effort would normally be considered folly for December, but I’m not exactly feeling the holiday cheer this time around.
Small bright side: I am still down overall for the year–by a little!
Larger not-bright side: My body fat shot up 1.8%.
Stats:
November 1: 172.4 pounds November 30: 170.7 pounds (down 1.7 pounds) Year to date: From 171.8 to 170.7 pounds (down 1.1 pounds) And the body fat: November 1: 20.5% (35.3 pounds of fat) November 30: 22.3% (38 pounds of fat) (up 2.7 pounds)
So you try to breathe But nothing gets through your nose Allergies are great
Okay, even by my low standards, that haiku basically sucked.
But who even knows if they’re allergies or something gone totally defective in my sinuses? It’s funny in a way, because as annoying as it is to have my nose almost perpetually plugged up, I’ve kind of gotten used to it. I guess this proves the old adage that you can get used to almost anything.
And addicted to nasal spray.
No, not addicted. I can stop any time. Any season. A season without allergies. The best season.
That’s it, I’m going to bed. Or have a bath. Something to take my mind off my nose.
* Possibly not an old adage
I suddenly and somewhat strangely fell off the blogging wagon after Inktober (also October) ended, and I am not entirely sure why–but I may speculate in another post.
But let’s talk about snacking. I have had some decent days and some bad days. It’s kind of balanced out but the end result is my weight is frozen right back around 171-172 pounds, instead of under 170 and continuing to trend downward.
Tomorrow is Monday, the start of a new work week, but I have booked the week off, so I am going to make sure I stick to healthy meals and little to no snacking OR ELSE. The good news is most of the snacks have already been consumed, so I just need to avoid buying more when I’m at the store. I can do this.
I’m reasonably sure I can do this.
And the haiku, this time about actual snacks:
Seldom sated by Satanic salty snacks Potato chips yum How can you only eat one? Entire bags gone
Yes, I did some snacking yesterday and shamefully did not post. But I was also down one pound this morning, which is both weird and good.
I’ve been better so far today. I had a piece of fruit!
More later. And now a haiku on the U.S. election:
In Which America Reveals It Has Lost Its Mind and is OK With That The U.S. voted Sixty-three million for Trump Burn everything down
Pretty much the same as yesterday snack-wise, so I won’t repeat the full list here. I was a little more active. We’ll see if the scale screams in the morning. I was down 0.4 pounds today, which was nice.
I suspect the snacking will diminish as the week progresses. Really!
Today’s haiku (about National Novel Writing Month, about which I will write more soon) is below.
50,000 words or less Write a short novel You have twenty-eight days now Do this? Good fiction.
Although the blog posts make for dull reading, it seems that doing a daily check-in on my snacking helps curb it and not doing a daily check-in results in snacking and plenty of it.
So I am back with the daily check-in. I will either try to spice things up by adding a haiku to each, for example, or move the check-ins to a journal program that no one else can see and is thus spared from. I will decide soon.
For today, not an auspicious start but it could have been worse (the brownies are now gone). The snack total:
Tomorrow I will try to go snack-free again, for real. For sure.
Haiku:
The Evil That Snacks Do They fatten your hips And everything else as well Yummy snacks are bad
The main thing is it could have been worse.
I was trending under 170 pounds for most of the month (yay) but in the last week I decided to bake some brownies (uh oh). I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to brownies. This is now established fact.
My weight edged up past 170 pounds. Then it kept edging higher and higher. Fortunately it dipped a bit today, but I still gained nearly three pounds for the month. Ay caramba!
But! Total weight gain for the year is only 0.6 pounds, which is almost a rounding error. This is good. Better still, my body fat has taken a turn for the better, dropping significantly for the first time in a good while, 2.3 pounds worth this month and down by 1.7% as a percentage. Fitbit still classified me as “overweight” for the last three days of the month, but these were The Bad Brownie Days.
I vow no brownies next month and to not just drop below 170, but to get to at least 165 pounds. Yep!
Stats:
October 1: 169.5 pounds October 31: 172.4 pounds (up 2.9 pounds) Year to date: From 171.8 to 172.4 pounds (up 0.6 pounds) And the body fat: October 1: 22.2% (37.7 pounds of fat) October 31: 20.5% (35.4 pounds of fat) (down 2.3 pounds)
I have been pretty good on the snacking so far this month, with only a few crackers here and there, no giant sacks of donuts or triple layer cakes or anything.
We still have brownie mix in the pantry, though. Dun dun dun.
But the best news is that for four of five days so far in October I have been below 170 pounds. Yay. I am now reasonably confident I can end the month below 170 and keep pushing to my next intermediate goal of 160 pounds. Go lighter me!
I had breakfast, lunch and dinner, with no snacking (lunch included a Clif Bar, which I now always regret later . Sorry, Clif Bar people, it’s me, not you!)
As expected, I was up again, slightly, to 170.4 pounds. We’ll see if I balloon again in weight overnight and set myself with an easier challenge to lose weight for October.
As mentioned in the September 2020 weight loss report, I’ll be switching the frequency of these updates to weekly, monthly or never. I haven’t decided yet. The important part is the snack-free-ing will continue regardless.