Fat Woman With A Band

honderd, cent, hundert, cento, cern, ciento.

one hundred pounds.

No weight change in two weeks.

Very, very, very frustrating.

I’m this close to losing 100 pounds and the darned scale won’t co-operate.

What to do? What to do?

The old me would have sat down for a few bad noshes. The new me? I’ve kept exercising, and kept watching what I eat.

Something has got to give. Got to.

Jackie suggested more fruit and fibre. She’s right. I’m going grocery shopping now.

And I know before you say it … not the kind of fruit or fibre as in Finnish Christmas Star pastries. But they do look yummy, don’t they?

Grrr.

Often when we’re learning something new we think of the process as following a steadily climbing curve, which at some point begins to decrease – the bell curve. As time increases our learning may get more difficult to begin with and then begin to drop off as we’ve “learned it all.”

In the past week I’ve been thinking of my progress curve as it relates to fitness. I don’t feel my progress has followed a standard bell shaped learning curve. Rather it feels like improving my fitness level can best be shown as a series of steps. It feels like I just arrived on the top of one of these steps or the tread after a very, very long riser.

Though my workouts haven’t been easy, I feel like I’m recovering faster between sets of exercises, and I’m able to get to the next exercise a bit faster. It’s not consistent, but I feel I’m making progress.

Also on my regular walking route around my place I used to do it in about 1 1/2 hours, with the last 30 minutes a bit of a struggle. I walked this route the last couple of days – I powered my way through it in about 1 hour and 10 minutes. I was able to sustain a faster pace, and I wasn’t dragging my butt at the end.

And I lost another two pounds. A grand week, all in all.

Did I tell you my project plan? No? Really?

I’m not surprised. I didn’t really have one articulated in my head. Other than losing weight I haven’t told many people how much I want to lose. And though I’m not quite ready to tell everyone how much I weigh right now, I can share this.

I want to lose 134 lbs. That’ll get me to a “normal” BMI for my height. To get to this goal I have three more milestones.

1. The next milestone to reach is to have lost 100 lbs. I’m 4.6 lbs away.
2. The milestone after that is to reach a BMI that says I’m overweight, not obese. I’m less than 2 points away from that.
3. The final milestone is really the goal – a loss of 134 lbs from my weight in November 2008.

I’m projecting reaching my goal sometime in March 2010. Thinking about my weight loss as a project plan, i.e., using the milestone terminology, helps me keep my eye on the prize.