Measurements

Friends,

May 17, 2006 I weighed, approximately 348.4 pounds. Yes, I wrote it down. That was the day I started tracking my weight loss and paying attention to it. I have an Excel spreadsheet I can show you. I won't because I sort of quit keeping track of it. Well, I think I weighed 348.4 pounds because, as I've mentioned before, at the time I was too fat for my scale to read my weight. It was electronic with red digital numbers, and for the first few weeks of my weight loss adventure it just gave me a solid red E until I got my weight low enough to be registered. Then after a couple weeks of progressive weight loss, I averaged my weekly weight loss then added that back, week by week, until I found that on May 17th, I weighed in the neighborhood of 348.4 pounds.

At the time, I only weighed myself after working out. From my experience, I usually shed about 5 pounds or thereabouts in sweat and water weight. So, in all actuality, on May 17, 2006, I was probably closer to 353.4 in actual poundage, not post-work out poundage. And, to be even more honest, at the time I was losing about 7 pounds a week because the body does not want to be that fat, ever. You stress it out, and the pounds melt away, and naturally you sweat more of it off, so in all actuality, I was probably higher that 353.4 pounds on May 17, 2006. How much more I'll never know for sure, thank god.

This month, I got the weight down to 254 pounds, even. That's 7.8 pounds lost for the month. Much better than last month where I gained weight. I didn't lose the 10 pounds I had hoped for, but still, not bad at all. The grapefruit breakfast and slim fast lunch seem to be working.

The real accomplishment for this month is that I'm this close to getting down to losing 100 pounds. Officially that is. Even though I know in my mind that I probably have already lost the 100 pounds, I have a file that says I weighed 348.4 pounds on May 17, 2006. Never mind the math and common sense, until I see 248.4 or below, then I still haven't done it. I will, hopefully next month. I'd settle for being 249 come July 8th, but lower is better.

And this wouldn't be a weight post without a little self-degradation. I just reread Mike Magnuson's Heft on Wheels book since that's the only other weight loss book I have, and there's this line in there how you can't grow until you kick your own ass. Well, let's plant the toe of my sneaker squarely into my own ass here.

This has been three years I've been at least paying attention to my weight. Three years. And in those three years I've managed to get my weight down, officially, 94.4 pounds. That's about 31.5 pounds a year. I guess the question is, considering my starting weight, is that an actual accomplishment? See what I'm getting at here? By no means am I trying to compare myself to those Biggest Loser people because they work out for 4 hours a day, on a strict (and sensible) diet and under constant professional care. Under those circumstances, I think I could have dropped all my weight by now for sure. I've had bouts of half-assedness in doing this weight loss, for a while there I just ate like an idiot and worked my ass off at night. However, whenever I think about how much weight I have lost, I always go back to my weight on May 17, 2006. But, that was three years ago. Shit, it's over three years ago. Is that comparison valid? Am I overstating what I've done because it's taken me three years to get to here (the actual of location of here, that's another story) while here could certainly have been reached sooner, more efficiently if I had just done a little more. This is especially true since I'm still 54 pounds away from a here worth trying to maintain, so I have a hard enough time thinking of this as an accomplishment in the first place. It would be like marathon runners being really pleased with themselves over running 15 miles when, really, they have a bit more to go so it's a little silly to start celebrating.

Even at 94.4 pounds down, I know cognitively that it's a big deal, but emotionally, I can't see it that way. It's taken three years, I have 54 pounds to go, I still drink, I still eat bad food, I still do all these things to hamstring myself. But, I am still going forward, but, god, that finish line just still feels so far away. It's kind of like I've been writing a new version of my body for these three years. Just revising, revising, revising for three years, and god, I just want that feeling of having wrote, you know. That relief of accomplishment. That's what I want...and normally, right now, I would say I have to go work out. But, not today, I'm sore, today's a day off because I'm sore and you know I'm feeling bad about it. Hamstringing myself again.

viva el mustache