A Two-Week Hiatus From the Scale

It’s been 2 weeks since I last weighed myself.  For most of those two weeks, I was in Michigan, and I’m convinced the scale at my parents’ place is broken – when I was there at Christmas, I weighed myself 3 times in succession, and got 3 different numbers that varied by over 20 pounds!  I could have weighed myself at the gym, like I did when I reached my most recent weight loss goal, but that takes planning – I only weigh myself first thing in the morning, before drinking or eating anything, and on this most recent trip, I never got my act together to get to the gym without consuming anything, plus bringing food and water with me, so I could get something in my system before beginning my workout…  It’s a hassle.  It’s just easier to wake up, walk to the bathroom, get on the scale, and move on with my day, which is what I did this morning.

The scale displayed the same number it displayed two weeks ago: 243 pounds.  And, truthfully, I’m pretty happy about this.  It’s tough to me to stay on program when I’m traveling.  I worked hard to keep up the exercise, and ended up hitting the gym 9 out of the 11 days I was there.  And my eating was pretty good most days.  On the day before my grandmother’s funeral, I pretty much ate whatever I wanted, and as much of it as I wanted, and it was a lot.  Reminiscent of the way I used to eat.  But the very next day I got back on track.  And then, on my last night in Michigan, I had a midnight snack (something I very rarely do anymore) of an entire bag of microwave popcorn.  It wasn’t “light” or “reduced fat” – it was a regular bag, and I don’t know the calories or fat count because the box had already been thrown out, and I had found the lone singular pouch in a drawer in my parents’ kitchen.  It was very buttery (and delicious) and the first time I’ve had popcorn in a looong time, since my microwave can’t properly make a bag – it prefers to pop 1/3 of the kernels and then scorch them.

Anyhoo, time to update the chart:

That’s a long horizontal line, but better horizontal than heading upwards!  I should also point out that the vertical dashed line on the left marks the beginning of 2011, and the vertical dashed line on the right marks the 1-year anniversary of starting this diet.  I also started my 6th sheet of graph paper – my chart keeps growing and growing and growing!  Here’s the 6th sheet:

In order to fit the 6th sheet on my closet wall, I had to shift the other five pages over, so now my chart begins above the upper shelf.  Here’s the entire thing:

What you don’t see in the picture is that the wall ends just a few inches beyond the 6th sheet – so I don’t know what I’m going to do when it becomes time to add the 7th sheet!

Moving on…

Because of the very wintery weather in Michigan, I haven’t been running in a few weeks.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  Twice, in Michigan, I warmed up at the gym by jogging a mile around an indoor jogging track.  It was 16 laps around a track that’s basically a hallway that circles some racquetball courts, and after 16 laps, I was so bored that I moved on to other equipment.  My last real outdoor jog was on January 4th, almost three weeks ago… until a few hours ago, when I hit the sidewalks of my neighborhood.  Because it had been so long since I had gone running, I didn’t have expectations for duration or distance, I just started running.  And it felt great!  I could tell I was moving along at a good clip, and I picked some streets I’ve never been down before, and, before I knew it, I had gone 45 minutes without stopping.  When I got home, I plugged my route into Google Maps:

I went 4.4 miles!  I’m still a little ways off from reaching my running goal (which you can read about here), but I’m very happy with today’s workout.  Time to add it to my chart:

• 9/21/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 41 minutes.  MPH: 4.53
• 9/27/10: Distance: 3.3 miles.  Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 4.4
• 10/5/10: Distance: 3.2 miles.  Time: 40 minutes.  MPH: 4.8
• 10/12/10: Distance: 3.8 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 10/16/10: Distance: 2.9 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 11/1/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 36 minutes.  MPH: 5.16
• 11/6/10: Distance: 5.1 miles. Time: 60 minutes.  MPH: 5.1
• 11/14/10: Distance: 3.9 miles. Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 5.2
• 11/28/10: Distance: 4.2 miles. Time: 46 minutes.  MPH: 5.47
• 1/4/11: Distance: 3.0 miles. Time: 34 minutes.  MPH: 5.3
• 1/24/11: Distance: 4.4 miles.  Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 5.86

My fastest jog ever!

Keep it up, David!