Tag Archives: Weight

Weight Maintenance

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It’s been almost a year since we started this site and one of the major topics we thought would be difficult to tackle was weight loss maintenance. Below is a graph of my weight since I started keeping track of it in about October 2010 up to recently.

I have been pretty happy with how things have been going, but how to maintain weight loss going forward remains an interesting challenge. On the one hand, I think that some habits are relatively easy to break (at least after you’ve been on track for a little while). For example, I haven’t had a soda, even a diet one, since around October. I can’t remember the last time we ordered a pizza, much less ate the whole thing together for dinner. I don’t think we miss it very much.

At the same time, you can see a slight drift up over the last year or so on the graph from a low of somewhere in the 216 neighborhood to a current weight around 225. It’s difficult to decide whether that’s a bad thing and I need to be careful or not. I’ve added more strength training, so I’d like to think it represents gain of muscle mass. But on the slow path from 220 to 280 to 320 lbs I never really thought I looked very different along the way.

We were discussing recently the issue of checking your weight. It is probably not good to do it too often, but never checking is also dangerous. (Maybe showing everyone a graph of your weight can help!) Probably the best idea is to slowly institute new habits – you often hear the term “lifestyle change,” which can sound like a cliche, but I think is the best way to describe it. At the same time, placing too much emphasis on weight as a number is perhaps not good either. Do you have tips for weight loss maintenance? Hope you are achieving all of your goals!

What’s your number?

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One of the ideas we had when starting this site was to emphasize other measures of health than weight. BMI (body mass index) I suppose is not terrible, although I am not sure it is a great index. At my current 220 lbs and 6’5″, I am categorized as overweight and not sure if I will likely get any lower.

But some measurements that we thought were more productive and indicative of overall health are heart rate and blood pressure. In the past, I would check my BP at the automatic grocery store machines. Partly due to denial I can’t tell you a “worst” figure, but I bet I broke into the 130/80′s neighborhood or at least a range the machine would classify as “prehypertension”. I would say, “My arm is not the right size for the cuff,” or “I just had a Coke with caffeine,” and chalk it up to that.

More recently, we’ve both been getting much better numbers at the grocery store. Sometimes we “compete” although Eyegirl has always had great BP.

Here is one of mine:

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And hers:

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Usually I only have a shot at winning the pulse category, but you never know maybe an upset is on the horizon!

A force to be reckoned with

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Looking at pictures of myself from last year or beyond, I think that I look very heavy. It’s strange, because at the time I didn’t think I was a “fat” person. (I don’t really think I look particularly thin now either.) In fact, one of my friends recently said, “I never thought you were that heavy, just . . . a force to be reckoned with!” I guess that is as good as any way of describing how I thought about myself too.

Another memory that sticks out in my mind was at a family reunion (weight 285, on the

Before, 2005

way up to 300+). A relative asked my weight, suggesting that I looked formidable but not necessarily overweight, and after hearing my response said, “You don’t look that bad – I mean,” he stammered, “You don’t look like you weigh 285.”

Our perceptions of ourselves are interesting. In high school or perhaps early college, there was a time when I thought, I never want to go above 250. (I was in 200-220 range.) But, when the time came that I did go above 250, there was no fanfare and – as a friend recently suggested – I thought I “carried it well”. Over the years, a number of occasions prompted me to say, “I’m going to lose some weight,” such as Eyegirl having trouble sleeping due to my snoring, or my 9 year-old step-brother commenting about my big gut.

After, 2011

But I never really succeeded or even instituted any sort of plan to lose weight. In fact, I don’t even remember any occasion of stepping on a scale to see if I succeeded in losing weight. Not even this past year, during which I have lost almost 100 pounds. I did, however, check my weight around once a week or so, out of curiosity. I didn’t have a “goal weight” (and still am not really sure what my ideal weight should be – lately I’ve even considered whether I should gain a little more than my current 220 via more strength training – although that is a bizarre thought and difficult for me to get my head around). I suppose I considered myself to be a 300+ pound person who happened to be training for a half-marathon. I didn’t know what to expect, but if I had still weighed 300+ pounds at the time of the race, I don’t think I would have been terribly surprised. Some folks ask, “How did you do it?” or “What’s your secret?” I’m not sure I have anything clever to say, but maybe something along those lines: Don’t worry about your weight, just find a fitness activity that you enjoy and set a goal to achieve something specific. That sounds cliche, but maybe people keep saying because it really works? Hopefully I will come up with something considerably more wise as time goes on with our site!