The Fat Guy Chronicles

Today’s Weight:  395.6

Yesterday’s Water:  104 oz

Didn’t do great on the water yesterday due to being out of the house quite a lot.  And then I fell asleep before drinking the 40 oz I’ve been drinking before bed.  I’ll do better today.  Still feeling ok, although I did accidentally sleep in two hours late this morning (and was therefore quite late to work).  The sleep did some good, though.

So from my all-time high of 403.2, I’m down 7.6 pounds.  That counts the weight I lost over the first weekend before seriously starting to track it, and the weight I’ve lost since last Monday when I started doing this program (4.6 pounds since a week ago).  It’s been ok.  There’s definitely been temptations, and I’ve certainly been hungry at times, but it’s been tolerable.  Honestly the thing I’ve missed the most is soda.

I realized a day or two ago that I hadn’t set a goal weight yet.

I’ve spent some time thinking about it seriously.  I could just set one final goal and work towards it.  The problem with that is that it’s essentially pass/fail.  Either I’m the goal weight, or I’m not.  Yes, I can measure progress -towards- that goal, but I don’t find that as motivating, as the big goal is so far away at this point.

A few years ago, I read a book called “Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World” (affiliate link) by Jane McGonigal.  The book talks about how to integrate elements of gaming (video games, board games, role playing games, etc.) into real world problems and situations, as it has been found that people enjoy games a great deal and some of the things that make great games compelling could be applied to mundane boring tasks.  One of the concepts discussed is regular reinforcement – so in this case, lots of little goals instead of one big one.

Losing weight is not an especially fun process for me.  But I am absolutely a gamer and enjoy making a game out of things.  So why not this?  I regularly divide up tasks into smaller manageable chunks because it motivates me.  And ultimately, losing a lot of weight is just losing a little bit of weight many times.  So I have several goals and things I’m going to try and measure.

First up is my ultimate goal.  I can’t actually set a “true” ultimate goal yet, as I don’t really know what weight (range, really) I’m shooting for.  I know I’m technically considered overweight at 200 pounds, but past experience tells me I would be literally scrawny at that weight.  So 200 is too low.  I also know that at 239.5, my lowest adult weight ever, I still had a few pounds of pudge to get rid of.  So 240 is a little too high.  But it is a good starting point.  From there, I’d be less than 40 pounds from a real final goal (and probably less than 20 pounds, honestly).  Even if I got to that point and stopped, just maintaining that weight, I would substantially decreased my risk of a variety of health problems, increased my potential lifespan substantially, and I would have a lot more energy than I do now.  If I pick Day 1 of this experiment as my starting weight, and round, I would have been an even 400 pounds.  The difference between 400 and 240 is 160, which is nicely evenly divisible all the way down to 5 pound increments (3.125% of my goal).  So that’s going to be the set of goals:  to go from 400 to 240 in five pound increments.

As interim goals, that gives me:

1. 395
2. 390
3. 385
4. 380
5. 375
6. 370 – More than 1/6 Lost!
7. 365
8. 360 – 25% Lost, Also Significant as it’s the weight I’ve been most my adult life!
9. 355
10. 350
11. 345 – More than 1/3 Lost!
12. 340
13. 335
14. 330
15. 325
16. 320 – Halfway Point!
17. 315
18. 310
19. 305
20. 300 – Significant as it’s the weight I was when Alice and I started dating!
21. 295
22. 290 – More than 2/3 Lost!
23. 285
24. 280 – 75% Lost!
25. 275
26. 270
27. 265 – More than 5/6 Lost!
28. 260
29. 255
30. 250
31. 245
32. 240 – The BIG Goal.  At this weight I would have lost 40% of my total body weight!
33. Reevaluate from there.

I’m not going to consider any of these goals reached until I’ve been at or below the number for three consecutive days.  Getting close to goal #1 though!  Hopefully this week.