Day 43 and 23 pounds gone -- two gone last night
 

2-12-07
265/242/200
Day 43 and I've lost 23 pounds - another two pounds gone last night

Got on the scales and saw that I had lost two pounds last night. Not
surprising, the number of times I had to go to the bathroom last
night. Lots of water gone.

We went to a dinner last night at our daughter's and I limited myself
to Earl Gray decaf tea for drinks. Not too bad. I had about 4 cups.
And dinner consisted of a vegetarian noodle dish - very good - and
other veggies as well as a roll. I think a total of about 900
calories. Two months ago I would have had two or three times that many
calories. However it was quite painless to give up the extra calories,
the beer, etc.

My watch numbers now reflect my new status, with the number "43" above
the number "23" this to remind me that I have been on my diet program
for 43 days and that I've lost 23 pounds so far. I think the speed at
which I can summon up these two numbers is somewhat of a measure of
how motivating those numbers are. I remember the first time I did this
- in 1999 - a neighbor asked me how much I had lost and I said
something like, "32 pounds in 68 days" and my neighbor said, "Not that
we're counting," and I said, "Absolutely I'm counting." I think those
numbers are very encouraging.

When I reach target weight I am going to employ those numbers in a
different way, with the numbers reflecting how many days in a row I
will remain under a certain goal weight (other than a grace period of
5 days to get under the target weight again).

As I noted before a major finding is that people with weight problems
often have such hugely varying caloric intakes from one day to the
next. Reducing the fluctuations is probably very, very useful in
maintaining a given weight. In retrospect, I recall that a heck of a
lot of the calories I took in were between 5 and 10 PM. This is very
common with many Americans, and pre-dinner and post-dinner consumption
is a huge contributor to obesity in the US, especially for those
overweight people who mostly eat at home.

Anyway, this has been a good month and a half for me so far. I know
the weight loss will slow but it has been fun watching the pounds spin
off. I'm planning to go up my little hill again tonight. (Mild left
Achilles tendon problems but those should go away with minor
stretching, I hope.)

I hope everyone has a great week and rest of the month ahead!

Yours truly,

Caleb