fat

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.

While this month’s weight loss was more modest than August (1.4 pounds vs. 2.0 pounds), it marks a couple of important milestones:

• For the majority of the month my wight was classified as Normal rather than Overweight as I hung around the 170 pound mark
• I dipped below 170 pounds twice. That’s two times more than most of the year.
• I am now lower in weight than I was on January 1st, also known as the Before Times

The last one is especially noteworthy. After switching up my weight loss plan about six weeks ago, I have for the first time ended a month at a weight lower than I started at this year. This bodes well for the future.

I remained donut-free.

Going forward, I may ease up on the official snack-free reports. On the one hand, it keeps me honest. On the other, it’s not exciting stuff to read, even for me. I can’t imagine another person or some scraping bot suffering through these every day. I’ll either do the updates elsewhere (“Dear Diary…”) or switch to a lower frequency for updates like once a week.

I am encouraged by these efforts and shall continue to work on getting closer to the thinner (but not Stephen King Thinner) version of me.

The stats:

September 1: 171.8 pounds
September 30: 170.4 pounds (down 1.4 pounds)

Year to date: From 171.8 to 170.4 pounds (down 1.4 pounds)

And the body fat:

September 1: 22.6% (38.9 pounds of fat)
September 30: 22.4% (38.1 pounds of fat) down 0.7 pounds)

Here is today’s cheatin’ list:

• The dregs of the trail mix. Gone now, so they shall tempt me no more
• A slice of toast with raspberry jam
• A few crackers

Other than that, I behaved and did my post-work exercise again.

I was up slightly this morning, to 170.1 pounds, so my time spent below 170 was again confined to one brief but glorious day. I will predict that for tomorrow, the last day of the month, I will be up again slightly, but will be delighted and pleasantly surprised if I dip below 170 again.

Today was the same as yesterday, with the only snack being some trail mix. Maybe a tad more than needed. Maybe.

On the positive side, I reversed the mini wight gain trend and dipped below 170 pounds for only the second time in months, coming in at 169.7 pounds. Woo.

It was a good day for cheating. I mean, good in the sense that there was no cheating, save for another small serving of trail mix. I even had pizza and saved some for leftovers.

And I exercised today, with running and all that.

I was up yet again, though (scream emoji here), but only by 0.1 pounds (eyeroll emoji here), to 171.6 pounds. I’m hoping to resume the downward trend in weight tomorrow, but am not predicting it.

A good day today, though I did have a small snack–a fruit/nut trail mix. But this is actually healthy food, although a bit calorie-rich when consumed in massive quantities. So I stuck to a small quantity.

I was up again, by 0.4 pounds, to 171.5 pounds.

I again make no predictions about tomorrow. I met all of my activity goals today but only did an official™ 15 minute walk, so exercise was minimal. But I cleaned and stuff, so that counts for something. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

So it sort of balances out.

First, my list of shame:

• A Clif bar. The magic is definitely gone now. I need to remember this the next time I go to eat one. I have some plans here.
• A bowl of Multigrain Cheerios. Normally this is fine, but I also had leftover mac and cheese for lunch, so the cereal was gratuitous.

On the plus side, I also did my first walk/run in a week. Go me!

On the plus plus side (the fat side), I was up in weight, as predicted, by exactly one pound, to 171.1 pounds.

I have no prediction for tomorrow.

Some mild cheating today with a few light tortilla chips and a couple of crackers, but I was otherwise good–and no takeout!

Surprisingly, I was down today, to 170.1 pounds. This time I am going to venture a guess on tomorrow’s weight and say I will be up, even after doing a good workout tonight, because bodies are wacky, mystic rhythms, etc.

Three square meals, that is, with no snacking in-between.

Two of the meals were take-out, though, and the only walking I did was to get to and from work–though I did get off at 41st Avenue instead of 49th, so I got some extra walking in (this was mostly so I could take the mask off ASAP and breathe/not have my glasses fog up).

My weight was up slightly to 170.7 pounds. I make no prediction for tomorrow!

I ate one more cookie today. I had to, in order to be rid of them. It was like a mercy killing. A delicious, chocolate chip-filled mercy killing.

But that was it for snacking today. I was otherwise good. I didn’t go for my normal walk/run but Monday is usually a day I take off because Mondays–cliches be damned–usually drag on interminably and are generally awful. Which today was.

I did go for two 15-minute walks, which is better than a kick in the pants, as they old saying goes.

Much to my cookie-laden surprise, I was down in weight this morning, coming in at 170.5 pounds. I am no longer going to guess what the next day will bring for my weight, because my body obviously moves to its own mystic rhythms.

But if I’m down again tomorrow, I’ll be rooting for more mystic rhythms in the future.