Goodbye, 5% of my starting weight.

Weight: 263.6
BMI: 45.24

Let's start with the good news first: I'm more than half way to my mini goal! I'm 28 days in and I've now lost 14.4 pounds and 5.18% of my starting body weight. My deadline to hit 25--a 10% loss of my initial bodyweight--is 9/15/2009, which is 43 days away. No matter which way you slice it, I'm pretty darn happy with the 263.6 number.

Things, however, weren't looking so sunny immediately upon my return from San Diego. The first two days went relatively well. I perhaps ate a bit more than I would've if I'd been at home, but not by much. By mid week I'd succumbed to french fries and a glass of white wine. Thursday I went on an In-n-Out burger outing. Friday was pretty darn close to an unmitigated disaster. In the morning I ate a scoop of hash browns, two pieces of sausage, and berries and cream. On the flight from San Diego to Atlanta I ate both complimentary cookies and an $8 turkey, apple and brie Sandwich with honey mustard (delicious, by the way). Stuck in the Atlanta airport, I ate a grilled Chick-Fil-A sandwich and fries. Disaster. Delicious, delicious disaster.

And it showed. My weight on Friday evening was a super high 269.4. By Saturday morning I was down to the still insanely high 268.0.

I dropped quickly from there though. Yesterday, I joyfully hit a new low of 264.7, and today, an even lower 263.6. I feel like I might be in for a small gain tomorrow, but we shall see.

I'm on track. I'm more than halfway to my first goal. And I've lost an amazing 14.4 pounds in 28 days. Now if I can only stop dreaming about Chick-Fil-A's delicious, delicious waffle fries, we'll be in business.

265.5!

Weight: 265.5
BMI: 45.47

Yay!

After a ridiculous--and unwarranted--gain (I got up to 270.7 ), I've managed to work my way back down. I could explain the ups and downs, but a graph is just so much easier:



Today, I fly out to San Diego. I'll be out of my element and away from calories I can count, but I think I'll still be okay. I'm bothered by the upcoming lack of scale, but I'll find some way to muddle through.

For now, I actually need to run and finish packing.

But before I go, 265.5! That's -12.5 pounds. It means I've lost 4.5% of my body weight and 2.15 points of BMI. If that's not something to smile about, I don't know what is.

A new low and food choices

Weight: 268.2
BMI: 46.03

Wowza. 268.2! I actually feel, for the first time, like I belong in the 260s. I'm incredibly, incredibly happy with that number. It means I've now lost 9.8 pounds in total. That's 3.53% of my bodyweight and 1.68 points of BMI. And that is pretty damn awesome. I honestly was smiling all the way to work. I'm so, so happy about it.

Yesterday I did very well foodwise, albeit making one slight mistake at dinner. I had a very light breakfast and lunch, and snacked on baby carrots at work. Friends and I were going to see the new Harry Potter immediately after work (it's excellent, you should see it), and it was decided to go to Subway for a quick dinner before the movie. Yesterday afternoon I spent a good bit of time on the Subway site, pouring over the nutritional information trying to make an ideal choice. I debated between going for the extravagant 380 calorie Subway melt, going with a turkey sandwich with light mayo (280 for the sandwich plus 50 for the mayo for 330), or, what I decided would be my choice, a 290 cal mayo-less ham and turkey. I knew I wouldn't be able to enjoy a turkey sandwich with neither cheese nor mayonnaise, so I'd ruled that out early on, but I thought maybe, just maybe, having two different types of meat on the sandwich might make up for the lack of delicious, delicious cheese and condiments.

So, when we got there, I ordered the ham and turkey. And then, in that second when he asked me if I wanted any sauces, I said yeah, just a little bit of light mayo. I stopped him to make sure it was just a bit, but it was still, in the end, either 50 or 10 calories more than I really needed (depending on how you count). Lyn, over at Escape from Obesity, had this great post about how you need just a split second of determination to do the right thing. And where she passed her test, I failed mine.

But the damage wasn't bad, I was still under my limit for the day, and I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I did the right thing for the rest of the night, refusing the many offers from my friends to have a few pieces of candy or a handful of popcorn. I did, overall, a really great job resisting temptation last night.

As I write this, I'm about an hour away from going out to a colleague's going away lunch. It will be challenging, to say the least. We're going to this pizza place called Ella's, which of course has no calorie stuff listed online. I've spent probably more time looking at the menu then I'd like to confess, and still haven't decided what I'm going to get. I know it might sound crazy to those of you who are used to being healthy, but I really don't want to call attention to the fact that I'm on a diet just yet, especially not to my colleagues. I know, I know, telling people is great and will help build you a support system and you'll be less likely to fall back and whatever else, but I'm honestly just still too embarrassed to at this point. I think ordering a salad would do just that, so I don't think I'm going to do so.

So, pizza it will be. The question between plain and veggie is up in the air. Plain pizza is my standard, and it's my favorite. Getting one of the varieties with vegetables on it—of those options I've been leaning towards wild mushroom—would be healthier and get more nutrients in. I'd also like it substantially less, and thus probably eat less of it. On the other hand, if I'm going out spending money and calories on pizza, it seems kind of silly to not get pizza I'd like. I'm not saying I should go crazy and order the four cheese one, or eat the whole thing, but …

I don't know. I'm possibly making excuses. I'm going to have a tough night (and a tough weekend) in terms of food since my parents are going to be here. I think I'll be able to at least somewhat minimize my food exposure by telling them I have lots of work, but there's no way around the fact that I'm simply going to be eating more than I've been eating since this diet began.

I know, I know, this is why you should tell people. I just don't quite feel ready to.

The worst part about this may be that I'm so damn close to 268, and with that the accomplishment of having dropped a full 10 pounds. It would be a big achievement, and I want to get there. Since at this point I'm just hoping not to gain up to the 270s while they're here, it's going to be tricky.

Hopefully I'll be strong, and even if I can't hit 268 this weekend, I'll hit it next week. And then, hopefully, I'll be able to not gain massive amounts of weight in San Diego.

It could happen, right?

I've got a long, long road ahead.

Turbulence expected ahead

Thinking about it more, this was, really, a terrible time to decide to lose weight. I say that not as a way of turning back, or to indicate any plan to do so, but just to acknowledge the fact that, if I tried to come up with a list of suboptimal times to lose weight, this would probably be up there with the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

I've got a few specific schedule challenges ahead, which I'll talk about below:

Policy forum lunch on 7/15: Tomorrow, we're hosting a policy forum. I have to go to it. In some ways, this is good. The chairs in the auditorium are a little on the tight side, and sitting in them always reminds me that I want to shed some pounds. However, after the forum there's going to be lunch, and I'm going to have to eat it. The lunch will be calorific sandwiches. I'm just going to have to suck it up and eat one.

Coworker going away lunch on 7/17: One of my coworkers is leaving soon to move to another state and another job. I like her bunches, and it’s very sad to see her go. On Friday, a few people have scheduled a going away lunch for her. I'm going to have to go—I want to go—and I'm going to have to eat food. I'll skip breakfast, eat something light, etc, but it'll certainly be more calories than I planned.

Parents in town 7/17-7/20: My parents are going to be in town this weekend. This will make things extremely challenging, to say the least. A visit from them means lots of my favorite foods from New York, lots of meals out, and a gigantic trip to the grocery store. I'm not looking forward to it. On Sunday, when I decided this diet was something I really wanted to stick with, I asked if they could maybe reschedule for some point later on the pretext of having massive amounts of work. They couldn't change their hotel reservation, so here they will be. It'll be difficult, and I might even gain a few, but I can aim to be way better than I'd previously been.

Conference in San Diego 7/26-7/31: I'm going to a conference out in San Diego for the last week of July, and I'm expecting it to be a very, very challenging week. I won't be able to weigh myself at all. I'll have no idea of the calorie content of any of the food. And oh, the temptation that awaits. Every morning, a croissant and pastry laden continental breakfast. Then an hour and a half later, temptation again as far as the eye can see. Then an hour and half after that, I'll be served an extravagant lunch. A mere two hours later, there will be cookies and brownies and other snack food. And a few hours after that, a reception with wine and hors d'oeuvres. Then, a two hour dinner, with probably three or four courses. A ton, ton, ton of food. And it's going to be like that, every day, for five days. Yeep. I'll need all the strength in the world. The inability to weigh myself combined with the massive amounts of temptation is just going to be all sorts of trouble.

San Diego will be the worst, but it's luckily still a bit away. I have time to get some momentum going. The conference is at a very nice resort, and I'm sure they'll have a fitness club that I'll be able to patronize if I so choose. There will also be, at the very least, lots of space for me to go on walks in. And walks I can and will do.

Anyway, those are the challenges I've got in the upcoming days. Will I be able to meet them? To thrive even with them? Will I just muddle through with not too many gains? Or will I be blown horribly off course ne'er to recover? Only time and strength of will shall tell.