Weight Update and Why I Reject New Year's Resolutions

First, weight update: On Tuesday I lost the pound gained last week, plus a tiny bit extra! Total is 7.4 pounds down since November 17. Since we’re getting into two months on my Weight Watchers adventure, here is a table of my progress. Sorry for the weird formatting.

January 5th 187.0lbs

December 29th

188.2lbs

December 15th	188.0lbs
December 8th	189.0lbs
Tuesday, December 1st	190.4lbs

Tuesday, November 24th	193.2lbs
Tuesday, November 17th	194.4lbs

Holy crap, do I want to be out of the 180s. The funny (or sad?) thing is that I really could be doing much better. Every week it’s a huge struggle to stay within my daily and weekly points, and I don’t even think I’ve managed to do it once. So if I can lose a pound a week going over, how much better could I do if I really really stuck to it?

Maybe this week can be that week.

Now, onto a super fun topic: New Year’s Resolutions. 

Frankly I think New Year’s resolutions are, more often than not, pointless. Almost by default, they’re designed to be fleeting as you lose momentum, and by March it’s hard to remember what the resolution was. Art classes? Learn to ski? Finally hire that hit man for your horrible boss?

Maybe the trap is that we think a new year will somehow automatically change us.I mean, it’s a new year, we think. It has to, right? But that’s not it.

Change comes from hard fucking work that’s constant effort, and it happens throughout the year. January 1st is not some permission to decide to change something, some unique opening that must be taken advantage of. I joined Weight Watchers the week before Thanksgiving, and I’m so glad I did.

People can and do change themselves, the date is irrelevant. New Year’s resolutions are the punchlines in sitcoms, gyms and weight loss centers prepare for an influx of people, 95% of whom won’t be there in a few months. It’s a nice idea, a new year and a new you, but it’s lost all meaning.

I am trying to make changes, the least of which is weight loss. If people want to learn the guitar, take Spanish lessons, go to the gym, awesome! But I hope they don’t do it for New Year’s, but rather just because they want to, and it happens to be New Year’s.

So if someone here stumbled across this blog because they made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, I hope you know I’m seriously rooting for you. You absolutely rock for trying to get healthier and tackle your weight, and it’s totally possible. But, you know, just do it. Not because it’s January, but because it’s time.

The Meaning of Failure

So if it’s not obvious, I’m feeling a bit blah. At first it was because it felt like the scale wasn’t moving the way it should. Then I think I let last month’s holiday slip me up, and I’ve been, it seems, coasting ever since. My total weight loss for April is, according to the calories, less than a pound. Maybe not so bad considering the holidays, but… no. This past weigh in had me at 172.4. Somehow when I hopped on after a few lousy days, I had this idea in my head that it would be right back at 200. Even though rationally I know that I won’t gain 30 pounds in a week, no matter how badly I eat, a few days or weeks off can still leave me feeling like I “deserve” to gain it all back.

You know how they say that on the days you really, really don’t want to go the gym, when all you want is to lie in bed without pants, watching Netflix and order some kind of greasy takeout, that that’s the time you need the gym most? Or that when you least want to talk about something, it’s when you really should be talking?

That’s me right now. I don’t really want to talk about how I’m struggling, how I’ve been struggling and often failing at eating well over the last couple of weeks. How I’ve had a couple of days where I eat great during the day, proudly bypass the cookies at work, and then end up buying a brownie while grocery shopping and eating it in the kitchen as soon as I get home. It’s almost an interesting psychological process. As I’m eating, I’m thinking, “Hmm, this is really not in line with my weight loss goals. This is like 500 calories of butter. Am I actually enjoying this? Why am I eating this? I should probably stop eating this.” It’s not a mean or yelling voice, more of a soft one that’s asking these questions in a vaguely curious tone of voice.

Rather, I just want to stop struggling somehow. But I don’t think that’s how things happen.

But maybe I do need to talk about, to express the frustration at myself when I do things (or more specifically, eat things), that are directly contrary to my long-term goals.  I’m at this weird stage where I’ve come so far, but I still have so far to go. I’m reminded of that when my fall coat from two years and twenty pounds ago doesn’t fit right, when I see a photo of myself that’s so much better than one from a few years ago, but still so far from where I want to be.

This stage is also, I know, a turning point for me. How many times in my life have I slowed, then stopped my weight loss efforts after those first 20-30 pounds? Too many. It’s terrifyingly easy to give up, to stop spending so much time and energy on this. Even though I love the idea of not having weight loss be this focus in my life, I know that will end with me digging out my old 16s.

Someone noticed I hadn’t posted in a while and emailed me about starting over and having another “day one.” I thanked them for thinking of me, but told them that I don’t - I can’t - think of these last couple of weeks as failures that require “starting over” now. This is one long effort, one long weight loss process that is, in fact, so long that it can have full weeks of failure. The last couple of sucky weeks are just part of it.

During this time, John’s been watching me mope around, and listened as I lamented the latest cookie or was as proud of not eating a cookie as a person might be at passing the bar. He told me that even if I gain during this period, it’s better than giving up and not caring. Basically, anything is better than giving up. Giving up would mean that I have failed, while trying and failing, or, hell, not trying but still caring, means that I’m still trying. Still going to the gym after the cookie is trying.

In case you missed it above, these are the latest stats:

	Start	6/8	8/19	10/29	12/31	1/28	2/25	3/31	4/7	4/14	4/21	5/5
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181.4	177.2	174.6	177	168.4	170	168.6	170.4	172.4
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.8	67.1	65.3	66.5	60.3	60.8	58.8	61.3	63.4
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	67.3	63.9	64.4	68.2	61.5	61.5	62.7	65	64

So day 300 of infinitely, let’s go.

Sir Lettuce and the Evil Mastermind Jelly Donut: The Power of Food

A year ago I wrote about the best piece of weight loss advice I ever got. It boils down to the importance of forgiving yourself and moving on from overeating, or from eating something you wish you hadn’t. I'm much better than I used to be, but still working on it.

But I didn’t go into one of the big reasons why I think it’s so important to forgive yourself. I said that food guilt accomplishments approximately zero and can actually be demotivating because it makes you feel badly about yourself. And that's all true.

But the other “why” is this: Food guilt is pointless because there's nothing to feel guilty about, because I didn’t do anything bad, because cookies are not bad. Cake is not bad. Lettuce is not good.  They’re just different types of foods. Some more healthy, some less healthy, some with more nutrients and others with less. Cookies didn’t steal your lunch money to buy more cookies with which to throw a rambunctious party and create more cookies, and kale didn’t start volunteering at the pet shelter every Saturday.

This also happens to by why I absolutely hate the word and concept of superfood. By the superfood standards, spinach and romaine are just as superfoody as kale. Likewise for blueberries vs. acai. It's just that kale and acai are novel foods and therefore more interesting.

Certain foods can be triggering. I never, ever buy marshmallow fluff or bottled whipped cream because I always end up eating the whole container in a matter of days. That still doesn’t make it bad, that just means I try to put myself in a situation where I'll be especially temped to overeat.

Putting food into categories gives it so much more power than it deserves. Feeling guilty over food gives it too much power. Overall, food has too much power. Or rather, sometimes we give it too much power. I’m not “oh my god, so BAD” if I eat a cookie, and I’m not “being good” if I have a salad for lunch. Rather, I’m bad if I steal the salad from my local hipster salad place, and I’m good if I get extra cookies to give to my coworkers.

I know this, rationally, but that doesn’t mean those feelings of guilt are gone forever. When I’ve messed up a little, eaten my way from a 3500 calorie deficit to a 2800 one, I’ve definitely been annoyed at myself. When I’ve devoured an entire jar of Fluff, I’m certainly not happy with my choice. But I try really hard to take it into the context that I’m human, I’m going to screw up, and this is something I can and will absolutely move on from. And the road to heath is paved with many chocolate covered bumps, right?

Food can be tempting. It sustains. It’s necessary. It can be delicious. It can be wonderful or make you sick. But it’s just food.

A Milestone Hit, and Why Weight Loss is Not Black and White

This week didn’t start out great, and didn’t end wonderfully, but overall it was a good one because I worked to work within the flexibility of my eating plan, and I think it was good practice for weight loss under (almost) all circumstances.

My plan is simple: eat a minimum of 1000 calories per day, plus any calories burned while working out. Those calories, plus another 2000 “weekly” calories that can be split up however I want allows me to average 1300 calories per day. That adds up (er, down) to a pound loss every week - but with a lot more flexibility than a standard 1300 calories/day plan.

The only issue with this is that if I eat a lot on Wednesday, the first day of my week, I spend the rest of the week playing catch up. That’s what happened this week, so by Saturday, I was out of weekly calories and would have needed to net 1000 calories every day until it reset on Wednesday. Not easy, and probably not going to happen without a lot of planning, and workouts.

Here's where the flexible part came in most, and it applies to any weight loss plan. So I've said this before, but it should be said over and over again: weight loss is so not black and white. There are many areas between “lose a pound this week” and “gain a pound this week.” Yes, ideally I’ll follow my plan and have an average 500 calorie deficit each day, for a weekly calorie deficit of 3,500, which is a pound. But if I end up with a 3,000 calorie deficit, or even a 2,500 calories deficit, that’s still a loss.

So as much as I really, really, want to try and get that 3,500 calorie deficit each week, it’s not always going to happen. On the last day of my food week, Tuesday, I was at a deficit of 2,200. But I realized that just wasn’t feasible to eat at the calorie level that my plan dictated, so I decided to let myself eat up to a full 1,800 calories for the day - maintenance level. That way I could eat a decent amount, but not have it spill over onto other days and still end up with that 2,200 calorie balance. I could even theoretically have eaten 4,000 calories that day and broken even for the week because of the previous deficit.

The results of yesterday’s weigh in:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/24	12/31	1/7	1/14	1/21
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	179.6	177.2	176.6	175.8	174.8
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	69.5	67.1	66.9	67.6	66.5
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	68	63.9	63.9	65	65.1

Awesome, another pound down! It's more than I was expecting, because I did not have a pound's worth of calorie deficit this week, but since when does the scale perfectly reflect the last seven days? Still a win. This means that I have officially lost 25 pounds from my highest weight. (Hopefully the next 25 won't take as long.) Fat isn’t cooperating as much, but it’s back down from last week, and I’m really happy.

In other news, I realized that between drafts and published posts, I have 99 posts. So I got 99 posts, but… actually I have no idea how to finish that. Help?

(Late) Weekly Weigh-In and Measurements

Late weight update, apologies. Now to abate your vague curiosity regarding my weight loss rate. (First and last time I ever do that, promise.) 

Wednesday’s weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/30/2014	10/29/2014	11/6/2014	11/12/2014	11/19/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	179.6	179.6	177.6
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	70.3	68.8	68.1
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	65	67.7	63.3

This made me really happy. Two pounds in two weeks is right where my calories “said” I should be, and always like when the numbers match up like that. Muscle count, based on how much it fluctuated, is likely a fluke.

However, this week has been hard. After a great weigh-in on Wednesday, which had me excited to be solidly in the 170s, I went to a work event for a departing colleague. My original plan was somewhat drastic: to not eat anything. I’d have a substantial snack beforehand and just stick to diet soda at the party.

The result: I didn’t actually have any alcohol, and didn’t eat anything for a good hour. Then I decided to try one of the steak-cut fries from amongst the crazy abundance of food my company ordered, and that led to ten more fries, and some warm pieces of pita. I ended up having about 900 calories in bar food - and that was with having no alcohol and even turning down a decent amount of food. It always surprises me, even though it shouldn’t any more, how many calories you can eat just by grazing for a few hours. My food intake didn’t even stand out; everyone was indulging.

That night I got home frustrated that I had used up half my “flexible” calories and it was only the first day of the week. On Friday I made the mistake of baking cookies for a potluck meal with friends, and ate too many of them.

The bottom line is that, good news, I’ve tracked everything, even the stuff I wish I didn’t have, and even with indulging, I was consciousness of staying within a maintenance level for the week. It’s weird, but I’m glad to have this mentality - I can write off this week, indulge, enjoy, go over my calories, but I refuse to gain weight. I might put weight loss on hold for a week, but I will not re-re-lose this weight. Not again. I went from 200 pounds to 180, to 155, back to 190, then down to 177 (now.) This is the last time I will lose these pounds, barring pregnancy or illness. You know that 96-year-old yoga instructor, who has been doing yoga for the last 60 years, and is more flexible than most 25-year-olds? I want to be like her.

I think part of the reason it was hard was because I took my measurements again. I last did it back in March. And? They were exactly the same. Seriously, I'm not going to bother posting them because they were the same. I even did the measurements without knowing the previous numbers, to make sure I wasn't influenced by them, and they were the same. 

Fifteen fewer pounds of fat, knowing without a doubt that my pants are looser - I have no idea why the numbers aren't agreeing. Maybe my measuring skills suck, who knows. Maybe it will take a little longer for it to show up on the measuring tape, even though it's shown up in my pants.

I’m on track to have a calorie deficit for today, but for the most part this will be more of a maintenance week. And I’m okay with that.

Weigh-In, New Challenges and Changes

Good evening! 

First, here’s the weekly weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/22/2014	10/29/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	181	181.6	181.6	181.4
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	70.3	70.8	71.3	70.8
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	65.2	67	65.4	67.3

Essentially the same number as the previous three weeks - a bit annoying since this was the first week “back” after all the Jewish holidays, and I was hoping to lose a bit.  Overall I’m considering October a maintenance month - not ideal, but pretty good considering the challenges.

Speaking of challenges, while I’m not a huge fan of the aforementioned weight-loss related ones that life craps out, I do like making little challenges or goals for myself. In fact, I’m so committed that I’ve been trying to break into the 170s since August.

Challenges keep me accountable, keep me focused, and make things interesting. When I did the low/no sugar month, I stopped eating office food, something that had definitely been stalling my weight or at the very least, slowing it. 

I was able to do it for the month because I knew it was temporary, and then I was able to keep it going after the time ended because I realized it was a good idea, and not as impossible as I’d assumed it would be. Just today our boss brought in delicious apple fritters for everyone and put them on my desk since that was the central location at the moment, and I didn’t eat any. And it was fine, and nobody cared. So I’m going to consider October not as the month I maintained, but rather the month in which I broke a bad habit.

New challenge: starting today and through November, I want to try and stop picking at food in other setting - that piece of pasta out of the strainer, that bite of leftovers, you know what I mean. I track it, but it’s really mindless, pointless calories that I barely remember and definitely are not satisfying. Maybe there are food issues at hand, but part of the reason I do this is plain old habit. And habits can be broken.

If I can work on issues one at a time, I think I could make real long-term progress.

I’m also going to change up how I count calories so that it works better for my style and can help incorporate those “picking at food” slip-ups into the week instead of wrecking the day. 

Since March, when I started diligently tracking my food, I’ve had a daily calorie goal. It’s on the lower end of the expected range, but I ended up averaging a bit higher because of occasional high-calorie days. Sunday through Thursday, I can usually hit that target number without too much effort. I slip up some days, of course, and go over my calorie goals, but for the most part these days have routines and I often “earn” more calories by working out.

However, I didn't give myself any flexibility. This Sunday I burned 700 calories from Zumba and walking to/from the gym, and felt like I had more calories available than I really needed or wanted. And then on Tuesday, I was weirdly hungry, even after my normal breakfast. So why not take the calories I don’t need from Sunday, within reason, and save them for the rest of the week? Why not count calories weekly instead of daily? I think as long as I’m eating a healthy amount each day and have an weekly average deficit of, say, 4000-4500 calories, the daily breakdowns don’t matter as much and my weight will go down.

I’m going to copy part of the Weight Watchers plan, specifically the idea of having both daily and weekly calorie goals. Weight Watchers managed to be be flexible but stringent, if that even makes sense. Essentially there were flexible rules, and flexibility built into the plan, and if you were careful to stay (rigidly) within those flexibilities, you’d lose weight. There was a daily minimum of “food points,” and a weekly allowance that could be used at any time - all in one day or split over different days. 

So I will start giving myself weekly calories, two thousand of them, available anytime from Wednesday through Tuesday, started today. Based on my patterns, I expect to use most of them on the weekend, but again, it’s all about flexibility.

I’ll keep this up for the next four weeks, and see how I feel. I’m thinking of October as the month I stopped eating office junk, instead of the month where I struggled through holidays and barely maintained. So maybe November could be the month that I get a handle on nibbling at foods and having unplanned higher calorie days.

On an unrelated note, you might have noticed that goodnightcheese.blogspot.com is now redirecting to goodnightcheese.com, of which I am now the proud owner. Did you know they'll let anybody buy a domain?