Friday, September 21, 2007

I think tracking is helping....

I managed to reverse the weekend damage, and lose another ¼lb, bringing this weeks result to 17st 3½lbs. The 17st 3lb barrier seems to be a real obstacle for me. This weekend has no distractions or other badness planned, so I wonder if I can actually break through that barrier next week.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Delayed Friday Weigh In

The whole weight loss thing is becoming a lot less fun when it's not actually working.

Friday's result was 17 3¾lbs, so half a pound down on the week, but hardly something to be confused with progress, and it rose steadily over the weekend, mostly as a result of a day's grazing at the Emsworth Food Festival on Saturday. At least we didn't buy piles of cheese, bacon, and olive oil to bring home.

I think my wife hit the nail on the head by pointing out the lack of tracking was probably working against me. And I think she might have been right: if you're not tracking at all, then it's hard to view the "should I have one more beer/extra dessert/whatever" decision against the total food intake for the day. "I've been pretty good today" means you'll probably go for it. "I've had 32 points today and should have had 31" gives you a bit more of an inclination to stick to the plot.

So, I'm back to tracking. Tedious though it is, it does seem to help, if only to make the last few decisions of the day a bit more sensible.

Let's see if it makes a difference.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Friday Weigh In - Surprise drop reversed

17st 2¼lbs this morning. The overall trend is slowly downwards, but as predicted the sudden drop from last week is mostly reversed.

Oh well... keep at it...

Sunday, September 02, 2007

I knew that would happen!

The reason I advocate wieghing daily is that you get a more realistic picture of what's going on.

Friday was a good example: I actually dropped 6lbs in 2 days on the scales. Unlikely, probably just slighlty dehydrated that morning.

Now, if I'd been weighing weekly, I've have thought "oh, that was a good week", and thought no more of it until I couldn't figure out why I didn't lose weight next week.

Seeing the sudden dip means I know it was a temporary fluke, and that I should expect my weight to rise a little to compensate. And it has - 17st 2lbs as of this morning. I also know from experience that my weight often stays steady for a few days, then drops rapidly for a couple of days, then steadies out again - I can only assume this is down to the differences between weekday and weekend habits.

And this is why I do the trending... I can see that the overall movement is downwards over the whole week. That' good. That's very good.

I can also see I'm a little way behind my original target of 1lb a week. But that's OK, that'll take me three weeks longer to get there. Since getting to the target isn't the end of the diet and time to start eating for my country again, what difference does it make?