Monthly Archive for March, 2008

See previous update for background. At today’s final weigh-in, I scored a 199.

To recap, my goal was to drop from 207.2 to 193.0. I lost only 58% of the desired weight (8.2 pounds out of 14.2), for a failing grade. If you take the theory by fish that the first five pounds are basically free, it’s even more of a failure.

Post-mortem:

Several self-fulfilling prophecies prevented me from achieving my goal. At the outset, I had an analytical argument with PP regarding the proper way to project future weight-loss. Since my method yielded a higher projection than his, and since I value defeating PP over all else, I sabotaged my efforts to ensure that I would be proven right. I also found that personality test that indicated my lack of follow-through, and after posting about it on this here blog, became invested in its accuracy.

Also killing me was a bar mitzvah menu on the night of 3/13 at a very good restaurant that I had never been to – thus my typical Thursday of “low-calorie dinner” + “tennis” was replaced with “gorging on awesome food and sampling every possible appetizer” + ”sitting on ass”.

Still, there are some positives. I probably lost enough to squeeze into that tux after all and avoid a rental fee - we’ll see tonight. It also feels good to go to the scale and have a hope that the first digit you see will be a 1, whereas previously I just prayed the second digit wouldn’t. And I feel better at 199 than at 207, and it must be heart-healthier. And I did it all without succumbing to Big Oatmeal.

I learned much on this journey. I estimate there were nearly 1,000 calories per day that I didn’t eat in diet mode that I would have eaten in regular mode. That is just disgusting. I also learned that you can’t rely on exercise to lose weight – if you could, then I would have exercised and lost more instead of not exercising at all. 

Finally, I learned that with the support and love of the 3B community, marginal progress really can be achieved, whereas individual effort alone would have resulted in slightly less marginal progress – it turns out it really does take a village after all.

PP ADDS

For the profanity I am about to approximate.

The arse-faced cob loggers at the Onion A.V. Club have decided to take a gigantic dump on 3B by releasing the air out of our collective sails of identifying and trying disgusting new products. Certainly the unsuspecting public will presume that Delicious or Disgusting has copied the silent-m massive media conglomo, when merely they have identified an exciting new brand to rend and tear from our nurturing bosoms into their corporate Sodom.

Thank you, Kathleen, for bringing this to my attention. I am having the Chocolate Skittles delivered to them as we speak. I hope Chuckles is happy.