You and I chat in week 26 of Shedding a big guy
This is what my weight loss represents in meth.
Me: Not “good” news necessarily. But it’s not as bad as it looks.
You: How so?
Me: Well, sure, it looks like I gained 7 pounds since the last weigh-in. That much is true. The reality is, though, I had put at least most of that back by the time I decided to make a wholesale change in the plan.
You: So you didn’t gain any weight since then?
Me: This might be where the bad news, if there is such a thing, came in. I swore off weighing myself weekly in favor of monthly weigh-ins. That might not have been the best idea.
You: Why is that?
Me: For one thing, I really don’t know if I gained or lost since then, because I didn’t have a check point. I’m not sure it would have done me good emotionally to know at the time. The other problem is when I’m two weeks away from looking at the scale and reporting to all of you, I can sometimes get a little relaxed about what I’m eating, thinking I still have time to make it up. So I might eat a little too much cereal late at night.
You: Or go get a Blizzard at DQ?
Me: I didn’t do that exactly, but there was one day recently where I really went off the rails. Overall, though, I think it was a number of small choices I made here and there that didn’t help. On Friday I ate half a muffin I didn’t need, for example, because I wasn’t hungry. It was good news in that I only ate half, but eating half of something is still half of something. That’s not to say I can’t have a muffin once in a while, but in that moment it probably wasn’t the best thing to do.
If I were to guess when I put the weight back on, I’d say it was before I announced that I wasn’t doing formal diets anymore. For the most part life has been awesome since then. I’ve been a ton happier. I’m three weeks without soda and that has been a monster bonus. I think the next thing I need to work on is getting enough sleep.
You: So how will you report now? Will you be going back to the weekly update?
Me: I think the thing is to focus on the next milestone. I’m 1.4 pounds away from being back to the 20-pound weight loss level. At 20.2 I’ll be back at 5 percent of my body weight lost. Those kind of things are what I will shoot for, and then maybe I’ll report each time I hit one. And I’ll at least write something once a week still. At least every Monday there will be some kind of update.
You: You didn’t mention exercise.
Me: I’ve got to do something there. That’s true. The back injury I had seems to have gone, but the Plantar Fasciitis is lingering, which makes it tough to walk for any real distance. I’ll figure something out.
Bottom Line:
Beginning weight: 404
This week’s weight: 385.4
Last week’s weight: 378.2
Change: +7.2
Total weight lost: -18.6
Weight loss goal: 205
Percentage body weight goal: 50.5 percent
Percentage body weight lost: 4.6 percent
Percentage of goal lost: 9.1 percent
Plans for this week: Happy New Year!
I’ve always maintained that it is better to fall off a little bit once now, than to fall off entirely later. For instance: better to a half a muffing today than to eat three muffins tomorrow. Yeah, maybe it isn’t part of the plan, maybe you’ll pay a little by not hitting your target this week. But it’s better than crashing entirely and giving up.
Hey have you tried a cortisone shot in your heel? I have what you have and the shot really helped. I won’t lie…it hurt, but its much better than the daily pain.
Hey Steve, I’ve been plagued with plantar fasciitis in both feet and what saved me was custom shoe inserts. They can be pricey and some insurances will pay for them, I had mine done at a local podiatrist office here in town. I also learned to ice my arches real good then arch stretching exercises that I can do while watching television or working on the computer. It does take time to heal but the inserts and stretching enabled me to be active again. Hang in there; you can beat this~~
Years ago I got a cortisone shot for elbow pain and it was like a wonder drug. The relief was temporary, but it was great while it lasted.
I actually do have inserts I use and they do make a big difference in day-to-day walking. And my doctor gave me the stretching exercises and they seem to have helped some too.