The slow climb up the large mountain

The math of this challenge is perhaps the most daunting part. When you see the nonsense on the internet/print/TV about people dropping 30, 50, 100 pounds in short periods of time, the more responsible of these mentions in some small print: "Results not typical."

Shocking, I know, but let's pause for a moment and consider what is typical. What's typical is that people "go on a diet" and engage in some haphazard plan to eat better, where "better" involves less. Sometimes, they plan to "exercise more" which means, um, usually more than zero.

Now here's a another "shocking" revelation: The more extreme the diet, the shorter it's going to last. So what we need is not some 2-week cure or a 72-hour cleanse. Those are useless and you can't possibly drop a meaningful amount of weight.

We want a plan that sets a long term goal that we can reach. And we want a plan that once we've reached the goal lets us maintain it for a long while. That's why it's sometimes good to look at the numbers, as ugly as they might be.

Normal humans can't stick to a program that's going to take off more than 1-2 pounds per week. Athletes can because they can work out intensely several hours a day. Celebrities can because their livelihood often depends on looking better than you. And even those folks can have a tough time maintaining their otherworldly appearance. Here's Jessica Simpson at arguably her hottest (more here). Lately, she looks more like a normal woman.

Which brings us back to us normal people and our 1-2 pounds a week. That's 500 to 1000 calories every single day of eating less or working out more. Now, it's an average, but when you look at those numbers, it's no wonder people don't lose weight. Altering your energy balance -- the amount you eat minus what your body uses, your "metabolism" -- by 500 to 1000 calories every day is no small feat. But it's one we can all pull off. I'm at about 2 weeks.

On the personal front, saw the dentist today, first time in way too long. Apparently, regular flossing and brushing does work, because I got a good checkup. But still, no excuses: the 6-month or so checkup/cleaning is part of an overall good-health regimen.

Throw out the scale? Uh, no...

Many diet books and self-proclaimed gurus tell you to "Throw Out The Scale". An example of this advice can be found here. OK, now that you've clicked through or not, please just ignore this advice. Don't believe me? Well, then trust the elder statesmen of the weight-loss world, WeightWatchers. While they have internet resources these days to help people like us, they also have old-fashioned, in-person meetings. And in those meetings, people hop on a scale!

Now, there are huge issues with the way that works. In colder climates people wear lots of heavy clothes and those clothes can vary in weight by a couple pounds each week. Regardless of what you're wearing, you will vary in weight by a couple of pounds -- over the course of each and every day! It matters how recently you ate, what you consumed, how recently you, well, got rid of some things, and so on.

So, maybe we should throw out the scale? Not yet. When starting out, try this on for size (no pun intended):

1. Find some item of clothing that doesn't quite fit. Try it on. Put it away without washing it. Pick something you're pretty sure you can wear when you reach your target weight.
2. Find a tape measure (the kind for clothing, made of fabric, not a Black and Decker) and measure some repeatable part of yourself. Hips are good for women assuming you can find the same spot again using a birthmark or whatever works for you. Men can use their waist. Measure a few times without sucking in and whatnot, so you really understand the dimension you're measuring. Right it down somewhere it won't disappear, like Evernote.
3. Since your weight is most consistent in the morning, right after you shower, weigh yourself and record it in that safe place. Each week, average the results. Instead of agonizing over the inevitable day-to-day variations you'll experience -- and women, this is worse for you -- you'll have something we'll call the Week's Waking Weight (tm). That's an average for the given week.

Your WWW is the thing you're going to see change as the weeks go by. But honestly, we are shooting for a slow and steady approach here, about 1-2 pounds per week max. If you try to do this without a scale, you're going to have fewer days you frown at the mirror because you've "gained a pound" but you're also going to have no real idea how you're doing until you've dropped a pants or dress size. And that's going to take a wall.

As for me, I did indeed hop on the scale today. It was indeed about what I expected and we'll keep the goal from the first post. Having not done that a week ago, however, I have no idea if this week's efforts yielded a pound or two of "lessening" myself. That'll have to "weight" till next week (pun definitely intended here).

Deprivation

People don't operate well when they are suffering from deprivation. Take away a night's sleep and you can get an extreme example of this rather quickly. Your body feels exhausted, your mind is foggy, you generally just can't get much done. Food deprivation is perhaps not as extreme, but it sure doesn't work well for most of us.

If you're perpetually hungry, you're diet is likely to be short and not very successful. If you perpetually craving foods you really love, you're going to fall off the "being good" wagon. So what to do then?

Well, first of all, eat. Often. No diet plan that doesn't involve frequent eating is going to get you anywhere. And since you have to eat less overall than you were eating before, you're going to have to find ways to eat less, but probably more often. There are all sorts of things that go on hormonally and with regard to your blood sugar from not eating.

To that end, I had a delicious sandwich for lunch, turkey on wheat, and a ground turkey pasta dinner, also really good. A couple of healthy fruit snacks mixed in over the day as well. Today is pretty much the 8th day of this diet / lifestyle change. I'll have to tally it up more formally as we go, but I'm conservatively down 500 calories per day -- probably more. If I keep this up, the goal will be achieved.

Is it really under our control?

Around 1960, 1 in 8 Americans was considered "obese" by the kind of people who track these sorts of things. Today, it's around 1 in 3. Another third of us are overweight. The definitions for these kinds of statistics come from something called Body Mass Index or BMI. It's super easy to calculate yours here. My best estimate -- again without actually weighing in -- puts me at 27, smack dab in the middle of overweight, but not worse. If I'm successful in making me about 30 pounds less of me, I'll be in the middle of the "healthy weight" category.

For you, the challenge might be larger or smaller depending on how far you have to go and your own personal goals. For some of us, we want to just be a bit healthier. And to that end, even 10 pounds from where you are now could make a big difference to your joints, to managing your diabetes, to whatever weight-related malady you are suffering from.

For me, I picked a big number that's designed to get me comfortably out of the health-risk factor categories and keep me there for the duration. I've had to do this before, so it's not really new. In fact, I'm sure most of us have gained or lost weight throughout our lifetimes more than once.

The first step is to recognize that it's in your control. It's not genetic that 2/3 of Americans are overweight and obese when few were in the not-too-distant past. It's not the package food companies' fault or the fast food folks that you've gained more weight than you should have. It's all on you. And the good news is that means you're in control.

100,000 seems like a lot....

... but when you're talking calories, it's approximately 28 1/2 pounds of you. Having had a good run the past decade weight-wise, of late I've gotten sloppy, careless, lazy and have probably put on something close to that. I haven't hopped on a scale in forever, and I will as part of this journey, but not yet. In the meantime, I have a goal: To cut out 100,000 calories from my diet or burn it off through exercise -- no later than my birthday in March. The truth is, I've already begun. We returned from Hawaii last week and ever since I've begun the cleaning up of the diet -- junk food? more or less gone... quantity of food? way down... quality of food? way up.

If you follow me on this journey, I'm going to share more than just a daily experience. There will be a lot of learning, a lot of sharing of knowledge. I expect a lot to come from the people who stumble upon this or who accept my gentle requests to read along.

And so it begins with the simplest of plans. Today I had some Kashi Go Lean, a bagel with a bit of cream cheese (not a great choice, but a good 100 calories less than what had become my normal), a lox/eggs/onion scramble with a combo of whites and whole eggs (thanks honey it was delish!), and I'll have some fruit and probably a Pure Protein before bed. That'll make about 5 good days in row.