Hi Folks, I'm struggling a little at the 164 to 165 lbs mark. This morning's weight was 164.2. For comparison when I was in Grade 10 in 1975 my weight was 165. Now I know exactly what you're thinking, Awe. But you know what, if its worth doing its worth doing well. I'm going to give it my best shot to get down to 160 by Christmas. Maybe its the end of losing weight the way that I do, but it too soon to know.Maybe two pounds will drop off tomorrow. Generally when I plateau I watch for the following: water balance, exercise, and maximum meal size.  The good news is that the dotted line that compares the change per week is close to the target rate of 1.0 lb/wk. The red line and the light blue line below are both 1 lb per week.

Here's where I sit.

Well its been quite a time of being dragged of for events. My old grandmother passed away, which while death in never great meant a week to be with family and not able to choose my own food. Had some nice restaurant meals too, including at least three hamburgers. I also new this was coming. So I pushed my weight down before leaving and then let it rise. Immediately upon getting back I took a day to use up some of the energy reserves in my blood. So on that day I ate only oatmeal and a couple of buns with cheese. Here's how it all went down.

The dotted blue line shows that I was able to get my loss rate temporarily down to more than 3 lbs per week before leaving. What's amazing is that is the same as it was when I weighed 220. You can see now, I'm back in the zone between max and min.

Present Situation

This is an example of a graph I would make to track how I'm doing. I make lots of graphs, but this is the one I like at the moment. It shows I'm in trouble from lots of eating outside of my regular diet. Luncheons and weekend barbecues peak this time of year. All I can do is track it and deal with the consequences. At this point I also know that my triglycerides are modest but not low and my delicious supper last night means stored glycogen is probably high. I'm above my minimum goal, so that means no fat and minimum calories until that red line is below the green line for at least two consecutive days. 

The Graph:

• Max-Min are the green and yellow lines
• 3 day average is my weight this AM averaged with the previous two days
• Loss Rate is a seven day running average, that running average is compared with the running average a week ago. I need a very stable and sure number to know what my rate of loss is, because I'm going to base eating decisions on that.

I had a weekend of enforced social eating. Since Saturday its been hamburgers, ice cream laden deserts, pizza, and luncheon food. That's refined carbs from genetically modified wheat, animal fat from genetically modified corn, and umm.. not much else. That's bad. But the worst thing of all is it leaves me hungry. I could raid the fridge. What's going on?

Well there is a fullness index, see http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor which includes some consideration for the presence of dietary fibre. It doesn't include my simple model which is that the digestive system wants a certain volume of food, for me I want five cups a day. And air doesn't count. So I would need five hamburgers a day, and that's serious. I could eat a hamburger for breakfast, one for lunch, one later in the afternoon, and two for supper. No problem. A hamburger is about 500 calories, so I think you can do the math.

We all have to indulge once in a while. And I say go for it. Satisfy that desire and move on. If there's anything to the fullness index, I should have had one hamburger with about three paddies.

Who says healthy food isn't good?

Go figure, the healthiest food actually tastes the best. Not I know its hard to compete with the flavor of Barbecued Spare Ribs, but who's to say that's not healthy? Its pretty much whole food too. Ribs and all. So what's the problem? Really just the portions. A rack of two ribs once a month is completely healthy. The only good reason not to eat it is you don't want to support factory farming. And that's a good reason. Some of us buy meat from real farmers who work real farms. You can meet ( or even meat) the cow if you want.

I don't mind a few of those ribs, but I don't miss them if I above my target weight. Yesterday I had something that tasted so good it makes ribs seem really dull and predictable. Cheryl made it of course. It was

White Quinoa
Feta Cheese
Green Onion, Shallots and Celery finely chopped
Lemon Squeeze
Fresh Green Beans
Green Olives


Mix that with a view to getting a reasonable balance. I won't try to figure out the calories, but here's how to think about it. Without the feta it would be 225 calories per cup. Feta cheese is pure fat, but its fluffy-- 100 g for 1/4 cup. but that takes up 50 calories of my vegetables. So my guess is its that was 275 calories for a cup. I had two cups of it in three small meals yesterday, so that was 550 calories. Breakfast a cup of oats, 225 calories, so I'm up to 775 before dinner. Dinner I pigged out, ate 2 cups vegetable matter, 1/2 cup of chicken 1/2 cup of poutine. Figure must have inhaled 700 calories. So my total on the day was 1450. Woke up at 175.4 lbs, the lightest I've been since I was 15 years old. Have to lose weight more slowly. Any ideas what to eat more of?

I don't plan to write a book, but I run into people who want to know how to lose weight and keep it off. I can't claim to be an expert but I can claim to be a case study. This blog is set up to edit and develop into an unbiased self-study that others can use to learn about how at least one person learned to control their weight. Think of it as an interactive book-- well okay booklet. Feel free to make comments and ask questions.

I didn't set out to collect before and after shots. I do have a few here and there.