Weekly weigh-in -- plus: goal weight gavotte

First, the numbers:

• Today's weight: 210.0 lb
• Change since last week: -4.0 lb (!)
• Cumulative weight loss: 124.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.91

Nope, the brand-new bathroom scale is not broken--I checked. I'm just going to chalk this precipitous drop up to the vagaries of water weight weirdness. But as much as I try to stay detached from the numbers, it does make me smile.

For more reasons than one. When I first started this project 14 months ago at 334 pounds, I was trying to avoid picking a goal weight because I remembered how crazed I used to get about that particular flavor of magic number. So I went about saying that I'd just shoot for 200 pounds and see what things looked like when I got there, figuring that 200 pounds was so far off that I would have plenty of time to get my head on right about matters.

Well ... guess what? 200 pounds is now not all that distant. So: what do I think of where I'm currently at?

All in all, I'm incredibly happy with my progress so far. My mobility has improved massively. Even though my left knee continues to flake out from time to time, it doesn't do so anywhere near as frequently as it used to, and it recovers from such flake-outs a good deal faster than before. I've succeeded in doing away with one of my blood pressure meds and halving the dosage of the other. I am now doing without my CPAP machine on a regular basis, and seem none the worse for wear. I can now walk a half mile with no major discomfort. I can dance through most of an evening rock show with only moderate stiffness the next day. If you had told me two years ago I'd be doing all these things now I would have thought you were nutz.

And while I'm resolutely trying not to concentrate on the aesthetic aspects of the weight loss, there's no denying that I've been enjoying the positive changes on that front as well.

But I still have some goals I haven't reached. Ideally I'd like to be totally off of all blood pressure meds. And while the knee damage may make it impossible for me to ever go backpacking again, I'd like to be able to increase my walking range to a mile--which, in my current neighborhood, would have the side effect of giving me direct access to the nearest trolley station, meaning I could contemplate going car-free (which would be a great load off my finances).

But I don't want to force my body to lose further weight--I know all too well from the bad old days how that inevitably backfires. For one thing, that would involve further cutting my food intake--a bad idea for many reasons. I'm nominally at 1400 calories daily right now, and enlightened weight loss experts say going too much lower than that really messes with the metabolism in a counterproductive way. Plus,  while I'm comfortable enough on my current eating regimen, I am damn sure that I could not deal with restricting it any further--that would get the deprivation psycho-behavior going bigtime.

So, I think what I'll do for now is just keep on doing what I'm currently doing. Eventually my weight loss will gradually slow down, until it finally reaches equilibrium for my current levels of food intake and energy expenditure. Whatever weight that winds up being, will be my "goal weight." And when I reach that goal, I'll just continue to carry on with my food and activity the same as I've been doing all these months--only I'll start calling it maintenance mode instead of weight loss mode.

Zen "dieting" at its finest, no? Before the Enlightened Goal Weight, you chop veggies and carry water; after the Enlightened Goal Weight, you chop veggies and carry water. Works for me!

Comments

[Kathy]

Have you looked at the "calorie restriction+optimum nutrition" blogs and info? Sounds like in your quest for weight loss you are also following the same path. From everything I've read it's an incredibly healthy way to live, regardless of the weight you end up at in the end.

Oh, and I just wanted to say again - you deserve major kudos for treating your body so well in general :-)