Week 34 - Progress and Pics

This week I had a huge weight loss, one that I am at somewhat of a loss to explain.  I lost 7.9 pounds last week, down to 275.9 pounds - - a loss of 58 whole pounds since I started working out.  To put that into perspective, 58 pounds lost represents 17% of my starting body weight, and 34% of my total weight loss goal.

I would say that this is an artificial water loss, but the charts would appear to bear out at least some directionally similar results:

The overall trend is strongly in this negative direction, so this dramatic weight loss may result in me plateauing for a couple of weeks, but it certainly may be legitimate.  Only time will tell, I suppose.

So what's different in my plan to explain these results?  This is the second or third week of eating more calories in an attempt to come close to covering my TDEE.  This is also the third or fourth week of adding the walks to my routine, and these have definitely added exercise to my base plan.  And of course, this is the first week in which I have done the 40 minutes x 6 days/week elliptical workouts, which has definitely taken up the intensity level of my workouts.  Perhaps this weight loss is just the perfect storm of all those virtuous behaviours coming together.

Since I have started tracking my food (and alcohol) consumption with the food diaries on the MyFitnessPal app I have been eating much better, and more balanced, meals.  I have also been more attentive to water consumption, although I was pretty good at drinking water once I cut Diet Pepsis out of my regular diet.

As for my fasting blood sugar levels, although I only had 2 normal results this week, they were back to back, which hints at good things to come.  Of the remaining days in the week, I had only 1 result over 6.0 mmol/L, which is a huge improvement from when I first started tracking.  I am still pre-diabetic, but my numbers are directionally much better than they were.  In time, I hope that the normal readings will be in the majority, until the only readings are normal readings.

In celebration of my massive weight loss, I went and got my hair done this morning.  I had it trimmed, and touched up the colour, and had the stylist blow it out straight (a nice change from my normal naturally curly hair).  Here's a photo from 2008 (top) showing my usual hair and one from this morning (bottom) to show the difference. 

 I don't know what I weighed in 2008, but it was nowhere near my heaviest.  Even so, it looks like my glasses are bigger now, which means my face must be smaller, so I must be lighter now than I was then.

My hair will not stay this straight for long - - maybe not even until I go home given that it is raining right now.  My natural curl will not be denied!  But hopefully I can keep it until tomorrow morning when I go shopping with my mother, because she loooovvees me with straight hair.

I am comfortably back into my normal first thing in the morning workout routine, and I have to say that I really enjoy working out in the morning.  When I exercise before I start my day, it's done and I don't have to worry about making time to fit it into my schedule later in the day (something I find very stressful).

On an unrelated (or quasi-related) note, I saw this morning when I was checking my weight on my wifi scale that the Nerd has weighed himself, and he has lost more weight - - 1.9 pounds down from a couple of weeks ago, to 202.8.  He hasn't been doing anything particularly special, but he has been cooking healthy meals for me, which means that he has automatically been eating better.  And he has been accompanying me on my walks on the weekend, so he's been getting some incremental exercise that way.  I wish I knew what he started at - - he only started using my wifi scale (and thereby leaving his digital footprint, as it were) after he had already lost some weight.  However just with those readings he has lost 30 pounds, which is amazing.  He is very excited at the prospect of breaking 200, since he hasn't been below 200 pounds since his college days.

I am very happy for him, but damn, I wish it wasn't so easy for him to lose weight when it is such a slog for me.  I spend 4 hours a week on the elliptical machine (!), go on incremental walks, and monitor my food intake like an obsessive-compulsive, and all he does is do his normal routine.  Sheesh.  But he is so darn cute and proud when he tells me he needs to put another hole in his belt, so I forgive him his relatively easy weight loss.  Mostly. 

I will be very curious to see what next week's weight loss will be, if any.  My overall numbers have been trending down in this direction for several weeks, so this week's loss may not be completely out of the blue.  I am ok with plateauing for a couple of weeks, if it looks like my body just got ahead of itself.

I see from the numbers on my TactioHealth app that I have 111 pounds left to lose.  My immediate short term objective is to i) reach 270 pounds (because that brings me to a 40 BMI), and then my next goal will be to break the 100 pounds left to lose mark.  That will be a big one.