There is no positive way to spin these (fat) figures, but I will offer a few caveats:
I was sick for the last week of the month and did no exercise, ate about the same and was generally slothful during this time
um, that’s about it. I was going to say I had fewer days this month to lose weight, but I also had fewer days to gain weight, but I managed the latter handily
On the bright side, I did manage to remain donut-free and reduced my general snack intake. I obviously did not eliminate it, as the numbers below attest. I did slow the rate of weight gain, which will be a nice precursor to actual weight loss…this month. Yes, this month. March is Weight Loss Month. Slim is in. Svelte is the new black.
February 1: 164.9 pounds February 28: 167.5 pounds (+2.2 pounds for the month)
Year to date: From 162.3 to 167.5 pounds (up 5.2 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
February 28: 19% (32 pounds of fat–up 1.8 pounds)
Tonight I did an elliptical workout at the Canada Games Pool and it was a good, sweaty half hour in which I burned 336 calories. The bonus, as always, is being able to look down at a bevy of people with actual swimmers builds. One guy was helping with a young children’s swimming lesson and at first I thought he was sucking in his stomach. But he wasn’t. It was just so flat that it actually curved in instead of out.
My stomach does not curve in.
Also I ate a bowl of Chocolate Cheerios today. They were delicious.
As I watched ol’ inwardly curved stomach guy teach small children how not to drown (a skill I still have yet to fully master) I thought about how well my weight loss is going in this early part of 2018–I’m at 167.2 pounds and 18.9% body fat, both up from this time last year and up from pretty much all of last year–and consider the balance between exercise and snacking.
I am still exercising. This is good.
I am still snacking. This is not as good.
I am exercising less regularly. This is not really good. When combined with the snacking, the results are obvious: fat, and plenty of it.
The solution, then, is to cut down on my snacking. I lost about 40 pounds by changing my diet in 2008. Maybe I can do the same for the 10 year anniversary, Except I don’t want to lose 40 pounds because I’m still 20 pounds lighter than 2008 me, so a 40 pound loss would result in me being “tumbled down the street by a strong gust of wind” light.
But can I reduce my snacking? I’ve remained donut-free so far, but I’ve pretty much just turned to donut substitutes. Maybe reduction isn’t the answer and elimination is.
And so I pledge here on this blog and to the several people that accidentally stumble across it from time to time, perhaps hoping to find some tasty creole recipes, to go 100% snack-free.
Starting on Saturday.
Why Saturday? It’s a run day and I tend to eat less on run days. Also there are still snacks about so I need tomorrow to figure out what to do with them, even if it means shoving them into my mouth. But no more after Saturday.
I will report back on my inwardly curved stomach progress some time in March.
First, the good news: I got through the entire month donut-free. Hooray!
A tiny bit more good news: My body fat percentage went down slightly from 18.5% to 18.3%. Yes, it could be a rounding error (there may be a fat joke in there) but I’ll take it. Especially when you consider…
The not-so-good news: I started the year at 162.3 pounds. Not great, but 160 and below was in sight. Today I am improbably up to 165.3 pounds and that goal seems buried under layers of fat.
Still, I will not be discouraged! I am still running and working out on the elliptical, and I’m probably going to get regular road running shoes so I can run at lunch when the golf course trail is a gross mud pit of doom, which it is now most of the time.
One last bit of sort-of good news: In January 2017 I started at 165.9 pounds. I’m still down from that. Yes, by 0.6 pounds, but still–down, not up. So there’s that.
And the official fat tidings:
January 1: 162.3 pounds January 31: 165.3 pounds (+3 pounds)
Year to date: From 162.3 to 165.3 pounds (up 3 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 18.5% (30.2 pounds of fat)
January 31: 18.3% (30.4 pounds of fat)
The good (?) news is the flow of fat has slowed in December, which is somewhat surprising given the regular indulgences this month and the usual lack of exercise that goes along with the consumption of things that go to the waist.
I was up again, though, from 161 pounds to 162.1 pounds. The bad news is I started and ended the month above 160 pounds. Bleah.
For the year to date I am still down overall, but not by much. 165.9 on January 1 and 162.1 on December 31 is a total weight loss of a mere 3.8 pounds.
December 1: 161 pounds December 31: 162.1 pounds
Year to date: From 165.9 to 162.1 pounds (down 3.8 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat)
December 31: 18.4% (29.9 pounds of fat)
Still down for the year, but only a little. I am now 12.1 pounds shy of my official goal of 150 pounds. There be work to do.
And I promise to do that work next year. Which is in two and a half hours. Yikes.
I exercised for over three hours yesterday, which is a lot for me. First there was the usual weekend stuff:
10K run at Burnaby Lake
8K walk to and from above-mentioned lake
About an hour and a half later Jeff and I went for a bike ride at Colony Farm that inadvertently included a decent amount of uphill cycling (Colony Farm itself is entirely flat). This worked out thusly:
13K cycling, average speed 12 km/h
All told, I burnt oodles of calories and was confident that I would sleep soundly that night. Indeed, by about 9 p.m. I could barely stay awake sitting in ye olde computer chair and so I went to bed early.
And spent the first half of the night having a weird un-sleep where I kept waking up, felt weird and bad, would get up to pee and would feel even more weird and bad, with almost flu-like symptoms. By early morning it all seemed to settle down and a Tums plucked from the bathroom cabinet went unconsumed by the bedside.
Still, it was a strange experience. I fully expected to conk out almost immediately after all the exercise but the opposite happened.
Also, my butt is slightly sore today and I wore my special biking undies, too. Also also I kept getting the high and low gears mixed up because it’s been that long since the last bike ride. I managed to get them right for our one big unplanned ascent, though. I still hget nervous bombing downhill. I do not have a need for speed.
Today, after all that exercise yesterday, I suggested we go to the Canada Games Pool. So we did–and I spent half an hour on the elliptical. And then I forgot to turn off the activity on my watch, so it thinks I was on the elliptical for an hour. Haha, no. I haven’t gone quite that mad yet.
The bonus activity-recording did capture half an hour of intense ping pong after the elliptical, though. Jeff won 2-1 and all the games were close. At one point the ping pong ball ended up in my shorts. I had no idea this was even possible and mused over the seeming impossibility of it while I fished the ball out of my shorts. I had to do this because it actually got lodged in the mesh fabric of the shorts.
We finished up at the whirlpool, which actually felt kind of nice after all the pseudo-running and not pseudo ping-ponging. I still get nervous about dunking the watch but it always comes out fine. Just before leaving the whirlpool, an old guy showed up wearing massive earphones. He also had a tablet (possibly a Surface) that was playing videos or something. He set it by the edge of the whirlpool so he could rock out while he soaked. I’m not sure I’d risk that much technology so close to a swimming pool, a whirlpool and a lot of wandering and very wet people. But who am I to judge?
I hope I sleep better tonight. I’m not going to bed early.
Also, here’s an official stock image of the Canada Games Pool showing the upper fitness area where I do elliptical training and then forget to stop tracking the activity on my watch:
The good news is I’m still down overall for the year.
That concludes the good news.
The not-so-good-news is I did not reverse October’s trend of gaining rather than shedding weight. Instead my went went up again, a hefty 3.5 pounds. Yikes.
This was due to two things:
an increase in snacking
a decrease in exercise (specifically running but also walks)
The increase in snacking was bad. It’s obvious I can only manage it when I exercise enough to make up for it, so when I don’t the weight gain is immediate and significant. This depresses me a little. I must again resist snacks. December is probably the worst month of the year to give up snacking but I’m going to give it a try before ending in an orgy of short bread and Ferraro Rocher.
The decrease in exercise was not due to a sudden transformation into a lazy, sloth-like thing, but rather because of the change of season. I don’t mind running in the rain and the cold (though I can honestly say I would never miss running in the rain), but I haven’t really done it in the last few years and want to get better gear for it. To a certain extent this is just an excuse but I’ve made some movement here.
There are a few issues right now when it comes to exercise.
For lunch walks, it’s pretty difficult to do when it rains. Yes, I have a Goretex jacket, but my jeans will still get soaked. I could bring a second pair of jeans to work for these walks, but it’s a bit of a pain to shuttle pants back and forth between work and school. Still, it’s a possibility.
For running, it’s now dark right after work, so I can only run at lunch. If it’s raining lightly and not close to freezing, I’m good with the gear I have now, though I want a second pair of running shoes so I can just leave one pair at work. The problem starts when it gets colder–I need better running pants than what I have now, plus a better jacket, one that can better resist precipitation (my current running jacket is more of a windbreaker). One final issue is when it rains hard, the trail around the gold course turns into a lake/river combo that is supremely unpleasant for running. It’s also a bit dangerous because when most of the run is done in giant puddles of water, you can never really be sure what you’re stepping into.
I plan on addressing the gear situation soon and the no-snacking begins tomorrow.
My plan for December is modest–to get below 160 pounds again and stay there. If I can do more, that would be spiffy, but my goal right now is to just reverse the weight gain and get back on the no-donut track.
And now, the grim tidings regarding my waistline through the month of November.
Stats:
November 1: 157.6 pounds November 30: 161.1 pounds
Year to date: From 165.9 to 161.1 pounds (down 4.8 pounds. In October I was down 7.9 pounds and in September I was down 11.4 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat)
November 30: 17.3% (27.9 pounds of fat)
Lately I’ve been getting cravings for food (I almost wrote “things” which may be more accurate) I haven’t had for a long time. Here’s the list so far:
Eggo waffles (I swear it has nothing to do with Stranger Things)
Sausage and egg McMuffin (I’ve indulged this one a few times already)
Oat fudge bar (from Starbucks–like the above, I’ve gotten a few of these recently)
Apple pie
Stuffed olives
Breakfast cereal that is really just candy. You’re not fooling anyone, Reese Puffs (which I bought on sale this week)
Goldfish crackers (judging from previous purchases I’d probably take these intravenously if possible)
chocolate of almost any kind
None of this is good for my weight loss goal. In fact I was just slightly over 160 pounds yesterday morning, a depressing setback considering I was down as low as 153 pounds just a month or so ago. It’s enough to make me want to eat four of the eight items listed above in a self-defeating attempt to console myself.
On the plus side, the time it took to write this blog entry was time not spent eating any of the listed items.
On the less-plus side, I had a bowl of Reese Puffs earlier this evening.
Unrelated but still food: Tim Hortons is selling a “snowflake” donut. I don’t like the implication there. We don’t need snowflake donuts. How about a nice sun donut to celebrate global warming instead?
Well, oops. The month started well but the last week or so my noon walks dried up as the weather turned soggy, I missed some runs and I found chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins.
In the end I picked up a hefty 2.8 pounds on the month, going from 155.2 to 158 pounds.
But I’m back on a regular run schedule and the muffins have been banned, so I’m reasonably confident the weight will start dropping consistently again.
Stats:
October 1: 155.2 pounds October 31: 158 pounds
Year to date: From 165.9 to 158 pounds (down 7.9 pounds. Last month I was down 11.4 pounds)
And the body fat:
January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat)
October 31: 16.4% (26 pounds of fat–up two fatty pounds)
September 1: 156.6 pounds September 30: 154.5 pounds
Year to date: From 165.9 to 154.5 pounds (down 11.4 pounds)
I shed another 2.1 pounds in September, despite taking a week off running due to a minor muscle pull and generally running less in terms of distance. On the other hand, I resumed lunch hour walks, which is where I ironically pulled aforementioned muscle.
Like August, I ended the month with my lowest weight at 154.5 pounds, putting me only 4.5 pounds from my official target and less than 10 pounds away from my unofficial target of 145.
It feels like things are staying on track. I’ve even allowed myself one donut per week at our work meetings. This seems to be enough to tide me over, so I never actually buy any on my own.
I’m not sure how accurate my Fitbit scale is but I’m a decent bit leaner ‘n meaner compared to the start of the year when eggnog was still available and being consumed.
Body fat for the first nine months of the year:
January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat)
September 30: 15.5% (24 pounds of fat)
Year to date: From 165.9 to 155.8 pounds (down 10.1 pounds)
I stayed consistently below 160 pounds this month, ending the month at my lowest weight, 155.8 pounds. For the month I’ve lost four pounds, proof that running a crazy amount may have some effect on burning fat.
For the year to date I have gone from 165.9 to 155.8 pounds, a total weight loss of 10.1 pounds, putting me within reach of my official goal of 150 pounds and not much further from my unofficial goal of 145 pounds. Looking at my waistline now I think it’s fair to say I still have more than five pounds of fat clinging tenaciously to my mid-section, so 145 is probably the more realistic goal.
I did not switch to an all-donuts diet as I had feared.
Body fat for the first eight months of the year:
January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat) August 31: 16.7% (26.1 pounds of fat)
This continues the downward trend that started in May and has picked up a wee bit of momentum. Three times in the past week I dipped below 160 pounds, once tipping the scale at 158.6 pounds.
For the year to date I have gone from 165.9 to 160.5 pounds, a total weight loss of 5.4 pounds. Not super-dramatic but I am getting close enough to my goal that I no longer despair and feel the urge to give up and switch to an all-donuts diet.
And body fat for the first half of the year:
January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat) July 30: 16.6% (26.8 pounds of fat)
Down 2.5%/4.9 pounds of fat. Again, not numbers to make your socks roll up and down but a continued improvement over previous months. Onward and downward, I say!
