weight loss

Today, I just didn’t care, so I cheated…a bit. I had some crackers. I had a Clif Bar. But I did a half hour workout on the treadmill, so it wasn’t all just indulgence. I paid for my sins in sweat.

I was down this morning by 0.3 pounds. This meant I did not end the month at a total weight loss for the year to date, but I am closer than I’ve been in a long time.

A few stats from my two-week snack-free experiment:

• I lost exactly two pounds if you go from Day 1 to Day 14, from 174.1 to 172.1 pounds.
• If you track from my highest to lowest weights during the same period I lost 3.7 pounds.
• If you do the same for the month, I lost 5.2 pounds.

The bottom line is the last two weeks have kept me on a steady downward track with my weight and I’m lower in weight now than I have been in many months. It would be foolish to not continue, so starting tomorrow, I’ll begin tracking September’s 30 days and see how it goes.

This may mean I have to skip a birthday cake on my birthday. Maybe I’ll have a brownie instead and work it off on a run.

If you look at my high and low weight in August, there is a spread of 5.2 pounds, from a high of 176.5 to a low of 171.3. I ended the month this morning at 172.1, exactly two pounds lighter than when I started. This is a smaller drop than the previous month (2.6 pounds) but it does reflect a two week period in the second half of the month when I started going snack-free.

If you look at the snack-free period, my weight went from 175.8 to 172.1, a more impressive difference of 3.7 pounds.

For one day this month–August 29 when I hit that low of 171.3 pounds–Fitbit declared my weight as normal instead of overweight. Today, sitting at exactly 25 for BMI, I am once again officially in the tubby category. Alas. But if I behave, I could have my next normal day as soon as tomorrow, which would be a spiffy way to start the month. (I am aware there is controversy over using BMI as an indicator for weight/body fat.)

If I had ended the month on that 171.3 pound weight I would have seen my first loss for the year. Instead I am still up, though it is now a more modest increase of 0.3 pounds (as of last month it was 3 pounds).

Body fat has gone down for the month, which suggests I am actually starting to lose the tire.

The no snacking policy will continue!

Stats:

August 1: 174.1 pounds
August 31: 172.1 pounds (down 2 pounds)

Year to date: From 171.8 to 172.1 pounds (up 0.3 pounds)

And the body fat:

August 1: 23.1% (40.3 pounds of fat)
August 31: 22.6% (38.9 pounds of fat) down 0.4 pounds)

It was bound to happen and today my weight went up instead of down, by 1.1 pounds to 172.4 pounds. Alas. I blame water and etc.

Snacking was absent today except for a few small pieces of cheese (not the seemingly massive calorie-rich slab I had last week) and while I didn’t do one of my exercise walk/runs, I still got out for a nearly 4 km walk to burn a few.

Tomorrow morning I assess how well I’ve done with two weeks of snacking, evaluate and then make a plan for September.

Today was a day of no snacking at all. I’m not actually sure how I managed it without getting hungry. I guess I spaced the meals optimally.

I also hit a milestone this morning on the weigh-in: I dropped to 171.3 pounds, which puts me below where I was at the start of the year. As of today, at least, I have actually, officially lost weight in 2020. Fitbit also decreed that I am no longer overweight, instead I am normal. This just means my BMI dipped below 25 (to 24.9 to be exact), which is the somewhat arbitrary line where one shifts from not fat to fat.

The reality is I am still rather pudgy, but now just over 20 pounds short of my goal. That may still seem like a lot, but given the results I’ve seen in the past 12 days vs. the rest of the year to date, it seems entirely achievable.

There is a small chance I could dip below 170 pounds before the month is over, but it’s also just as likely I could gain water weight or swallow lead ingots encased in chocolate or something, and see an increase instead. I’m hoping for the former, but braced for the latter (don’t worry, I don’t have any chocolate-covered lead ingots handy).

I had a small banana after my walk/run and a few crackers before dinner because I was crazy hungry. But that was it!

I was down slightly in weight, to 172.5 pounds. Still overweight by Fitbit’s assessment, but oh so close to being merely pudgy.

* technically a few snacks

There was a tiny smattering of Goldfish crackers left, so I ate them and another temptation is no longer within easy reach. The only other snack I had today was a small banana. That’s pretty good, I’d say.

To my surprise, I was down this morning, all the way to 172.7 pounds–my lowest since February and less than a pound off where I was on January 1st (171.8). This is encouraging.

I will not celebrate by stuffing my face with candy.

Yes, I cheated in a minor way with some Goldfish crackers again. This time I stopped and let the guilt wash over me in real time. I behaved for the rest of the day.

I was up to 174 pounds even, I think that may have pushed me to the crackers. But I did work them off later in the afternoon with another run/walk.

Still, I vow to do better for the rest of this 14 day experiment. I’ve been pretty good so far, but I can be better than pretty good.

At least donuts aren’t easy and convenient.

For the second day in a row my weight was up (sob), but my body fat was very slightly lower (yay).

I stuck to meals only today with two exceptions:

• I scarfed down some sugar snap peas in the early afternoon and they were yummy (and perfectly fine as a snack)
• I had a serving of Goldfish crackers mid-afternoon. These were somewhat yummy, but very much not on my approved snack list. But I did hold off on scarfing them and they totaled about 90 calories in total, which I more than burned off on my post-work walk/run. so not great that I broke my rules, but I think I’ll be okay, and the heavy guilt of eating those baked fish-shaped things will weight heavy on me for perhaps hours to come.

And with that I am halfway through my two week experiment. So far the signs have been encouraging and I’ve stayed pretty much on track. We’ll see how things go in Week 2.

This is the second day in a row in which I’ve had zero snacks–not even healthy ones!

Plus I did a 10 km walk/run that burned over 700 calories, so in all, a pretty decent day.

I did gain 0.4 pounds when I stepped on the scale this morning. I chalk it up less to the pizza I had last night and more to the fact that the pizza made me so thirsty I drank enough water to fill a pumper truck.

(The beef was beef and broccoli stir-fry, one of my rare sojourns into red meat.)

Today I had breakfast, lunch and dinner and no snacks at all, not even healthy ones.

I did have pizza for dinner, which is both delicious and a caloriepocalypse, but I also did my 70 minute workout and walked around Deer Lake and Burnaby Park–over 21 km in total. So I should be good there.

Weight was unchanged today, we’ll see what the pizza does for tomorrow morning.

Good news: I was down in weight again, another 0.9 pounds, down to 173.4, my lowest weight since the start of the year. Woo.

Bad news: Mid-afternoon and the day felt like it was dragging on interminably. I gave in and had one serving of crackers, which I ate over a period of time instead of just shaking the box directly into my mouth.

I was very good otherwise, though, and was actually too low on my calorie goal for the day, so ate just enough to tip me past.

I felt guilty eating the crackers–as intended–and as I type this I am noshing on carrot sticks. I could learn to like these.

We’ll see if the crackers instantly convert to fat when I weight myself tomorrow morning.

I once again managed to skip snacking today. I would clap myself on the back but it hurts when I try.

The closest I came to Unauthorized Snacking was when I added a 50 gram serving of Havarti cheese to my dinner. I later found out this has 189 calories, which is a lot more than I’d expected. Oops. Fortunately I still came in under my calorie goal and cheese is a better snack than, say, a bag of chocolate frosted Skittles.

Also, my weight was different this morning–down 1.5 pounds. Now I am really expecting to be up tomorrow. We will see.