Because if I put it out as a public promise, I will totes stick to it. This has nothing to do with me gaining 0.8 pounds overnight. NOTHING.
Also, I am making an exception for Tic Tacs, as they have no calories, they are tiny, and I don’t exactly eat them by the bucketful. And they have adorably cute names, like BIG BERRY ADVENTURE:
* Starting tomorrow, May 23, since I already cheated today as I wrote this
Once again, my weight loss plan has worked in reverse. Oops.
The first three weeks were bad, a snack-laden mess. On the 9th I did actually lose weight, technically, shedding 0.1 pounds. After that, it was balloon time, with my weight peaking at 167.5 pounds on the 26th. I impressively lost 2.2 pounds over the next four days when the snacks were put aside instead of put into my tummy.
But it still left me two pounds up for the month.
The negatives:
The positives:
Stats:
Weight: January 1, 2023: 164.2 pounds Current: 165.3 pounds Year to date: Up 1.2 pounds April 1: 163.3 pounds April 30: 165.3 pounds (up 2 pounds) Body fat: April 1: 24% April 30: 24 (unchanged) Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
Good news: I am still down for the year!
Bad news: I gained 2.2 pounds instead of losing the 1.5 pounds I wanted to.
Mediocre news: This means I didn’t fully undo the weight loss of February, just…most of it.
March has been a tough month and I dealt with it mostly through comfort food, which is wrong and bad, but perhaps understandable.
My goal for April is to keep running regularly, and to get below 160 pounds, the same goal I had for March. The difference is I now have to lose 3.7 pounds to achieve it, nearly a pound per week. It is possible, but it’s going to take a lot of discipline.
I may take up meditation.
Let’s see where I’m at in 30 days!
Stats:
Weight: January 1, 2023: 164.2 pounds Current: 163.7 pounds Year to date: Down 0.5 pounds March 1: 161.5 pounds March 31: 163.7 pounds (up 2.2 pounds) Body fat: March 1: 23.5% March 31: 24.1% (up 0.6%) Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
Good news: I lost three pounds!
Not-as-good news: It could have been more.
Still, I’m not going to complain too much. February is a short month, so a few less days to sweat off the weight. I did some snacking, but mostly offset it with exercise. There’s snow on the ground as I type this, but I’ve been using the treadmill.
March will see the return of Daylight Saving Time, the start of spring and hopefully milder weather (you know, no snow, which would be nice). My goal for the month is extremely modest:
Get below 160 pounds and stay there.
As of today, I have 1.6 pounds to go. If I lose weight at this month’s pace, I should hit my goal in the next few weeks.
We will see.
Stats:
Weight: January 1, 2023: 164.2 pounds Current: 161.6 pounds Year to date: Down 2.6 pounds February 1: 164.6 pounds February 28: 161.6 pounds (down 3 pounds) Body fat: February 1: 23.3% February 28: 23.4% (up 0.1%) Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
I’m now measuring things using the Garmin Index S2 scale. I don’t have a way to convert body fat percentage to actual pounds of fat, but maybe that’s a good thing.
For the month, the news is good and bad.
Good: My weight was down!
Bad: It was down only 1.1 pounds, which is an amount I can easily swing back and forth from in 24 hours. So pretty close to just treading water (or retaining it).
Still, down is better than up. Now that I’ve done the maintenance part for a month, I need to get back to the losing part. I’m not making any predictions to start the year, except that I should be down again at the end of February. We’ll find out in just 28 days!
Stats:
Weight: January 1, 2023: 164.2 pounds Current: 163.1 pounds Year to date: Down 1.1 pounds January 1: 164.2 pounds January 31: 163.1 pounds (down 1.1 pounds) Body fat: January 1: 23.1% January 31: 23.3% (up 0.2%) Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
No miracle weight loss at the end of the month. Or year. Or at all!
Yes, December was a bad month. I snacked and snacked and even as I type this around 8 a.m. I can hear the people upstairs banging and thumping around, and I have definitely turned to snacks to help manage the stress their constant noise is causing. But I know I can do better and be more disciplined, so I remain committed to my 150 pound weight loss goal.
The good news is that I am still down a respectable amount for the year, as I started at 182.8 pounds, meaning despite the weight gain this month, I am still down 17.3 pounds for the year, which ain’t nothing.
But at one point I was at 157.3 pounds and was so close to hitting my goal. Sad trombone.
Here’s to (early) 2023 being when I actually hit that goal! Or else. Or else I won’t.
But I will!
Weight: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds Current: 165.5 pounds Year to date: Down 17.3 pounds December 1: 160.9 pounds December 31: 165.5 pounds (up 4.6 pounds) Body fat: NOTE: The Garmin scale is calculating my body fat differently, or something, because it has it much higher than the Fitbit scale ever did. Oddly, this means for the year to date, my overall body fat is...exactly the same. Garmin also doesn't convert your body fat percentage into weight, so I had to do this myself. As a result and assuming I did the math right (always questionable), I only shed about four pounds of body fat for the entire year, despite dropping 17.3 pounds overall. Did I lose 14 pounds of muscle? Of course not. We'll see how this stat plays out in 2023 with just the Garmin scale being used for weight measurement. January 1: 23% (42.1 pounds of fat) November 30: 23% (38 pounds of fat--down 4.2 pounds)
A bag of nacho tortilla chips. And I ate the whole bag!
I weighed in at 163.8 pounds this morning. That’s almost seven pounds above my low this year and taking me further away from reaching my goal of 150 pounds, which I should have trivially reached by the end of the year. With two weeks to go, I will probably not even break 160.
But I’m going to try, so I am publicly stating this to the entire interweb to hold myself accountable (I already yelled at myself in my diary):
I vow to not purchase or consume any snacks for the rest of 2022, all 16 days of it!
Let’s see what that big mean scale says on December 31st.
Now, I’m off for some cake. KIDDING.
(I don’t have any cake. Not that I would eat it if I did. I’m pretty sure. No, I mean, I am absolutely 100% sure. Yes. RARR NO CAKE. See?)
Look at how thin and svelte this cat is:
Yeah, this month was bad, there is no other way to put it.
But it could have been worse.
I started the month at 158.7 pounds, a mere 8.7 pounds away from my goal of 150. It was within reach! However, my weight inched back up over 160 and in the final week it persistently stayed just over 160 and I ended the month at 161.3 pounds.
I now need to lose 11.3 pounds to hit my goal. If I intend to do it before the end of 2022 I would need to lose an average of 0.376 pounds per day. When I put it that way, it sounds pretty easy. It also translates to 2.82 pounds per week, which makes it sound a lot harder.
So 0.376 pounds per day it is!
The good news is that I have been running regularly, and it’s quite possible that some of the weight gain may be actual muscle mass. Maybe I’ll get a fancy™ scale that can measure that sort of thing, so I have yet another stat to track1UPDATE: The Garmin scale coincidentally went on scale, so I have ordered it. I like stats. And lists.
Actually, looking over the Fitbit stats, there is also some good news on body fat. It was down slightly from October, from 17.5% to 17.1% and my total body fat over the year declined as a result.
Here’s to a Christmas miracle and actual weight loss resuming in the month of December. Ho ho ho!
Stats:
Weight: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds Current: 161.3 pounds Year to date: Down 21.5 pounds November 1: 158.7 pounds November 30: 161.3 pounds (up 2.6 pounds) Body fat: January 1: 23% (42.1 pounds of fat) November 30: 17.1% (27.6 pounds of fat--down 14.5 pounds)
Yes, it is sad trombone time. After steadily losing weight, I managed to gain this month, though I kept it down to a singe pound, which effectively means my weight stood still in the big picture.
In the monthly picture, what happened was I started at 157.3 pounds then due to a series of unfortunate events, found myself returning, again and again, to food as a source of comfort.
I ate cookies. I ate crackers. I ate Pop-Tarts. I ate everything.
In the last week or so I made a healthy course correction and my weight began a slow, steady decline after that (I peaked at 160.2 pounds on October 18th). The last six days of the month I’ve gone from 160.2 to 158.3, so I am pleased by that.
Since I’m eight pounds away from my goal of 150 pounds, I’m leery to say I’ll hit it in November, but it is at least theoretically possible.
Stats:
Weight: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds Current: 158.37 pounds Year to date: Down 24.5 pounds October 1: 157.3 pounds October 31: 158.3 pounds (up 1.0 pounds) Body fat: January 1: 23% (42.1 pounds of fat) October 31: 17.5% (27.7 pounds of fat--down 14.4 pounds)
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)
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)