End of Week 18: Reactivated Gym Membership

At 203.4 pounds, the thought of getting off the couch (never mind exercising) left me breathless. And not in a good way.

Friday of week 18, I decided to reactivate our gym membership (I had put it on hold for the winter because we just were not going at all, and the cost was ridiculous). Weather is nice, kids want to go swim, so it was time. A little side benefit was that I got all motivated to start going to classes again. The cost per visit is not as silly if I go 6 days a week than if we go 3 times per month.

The first class Friday afternoon was called Powersculpt and it was REALLY difficult. No abdominal muscles at all (two C-sections plus never got back in shape and had hurt my back, winge, winge, winge). SO sore for days afterwards. I will talk more about this in week 19 (just wait until you see those results – I am writing this on Wednesday – stay tuned).

How am I doing so far? I have a lot of charts and tables to look at. I am such a geek. NewJohn does a table kind of like this, so I am copying his idea here. To date, I have lost 21.4 pounds (23.9 pounds of fat), and lost a net of 1.2 pounds in week 18. I increased my exercise and got my water intake back up in week 18 and dropped 3.2 pounds of body fat and put on 2.0 pounds of lean mass. I am using a “trailing 7-day average” for body fat percentage and multiplying the result by my weight to calculate body fat pounds. Not perfect, but helpful to me.

This next chart is my own personal favorite – I compare the current week with the prior week (same day). “Peak” is the day after cheat day, and the last point on a particular line is the morning of cheat day. Week 18 was my best yet. You can see the start of week 19 results in there too, lying right on top of week 18. I will be curious to see the final results. Note how the pattern is so predictable. I love that about the slow carb diet, and Tim’s 4HB program.

Not that I am a huge fan of BMI calculations, but in case you are keeping score at home. The bottom of this chart is my near-term body weight goal (which is my pre-pregnancy weight and also the level at which my BMI crosses from “obese” to just “overweight”). No wonder I hate talking about BMI… When in good shape, my BMI is very misleading, as I am very muscular – we’ll see as I get closer to my long term goal, which is somewhere between 135 and 145 I think.

I kind of like this chart too. It is designed kind of like a stock chart, with max, min and ending for the week. So much noise, filtered out in this simple presentation.  The end of week 17 and into week 18 I was traveling, so I did not get a final weigh in that week.

Love, love, love this one. I formatted it a little differently, so it is a bit easier to read. The thick, lighter lines are the daily readings. The thin, darker lines are the trailing 7-day averages, which I think show a better trend. Either water % or body fat % have to be plugs in the algorithm on my scale, because they move in opposite directions. Look what a huge difference adding in exercise has had (this chart goes through Wednesday of week 19).

Now to have a look at the inches. Total inches lost are 15.75″. Hips dropped a lot in weeks 17 and 18 (I did not measure at the end of week 17 since I was away). These figures are since the beginning of the program, on 1/1/2011.

One last one. This is a part of my report that I look at a lot lately, as I am turning my attention from weight loss to incorporate fitness/exercise into the mix. Fat pounds are down 23.9 since I started, and lean pounds ended week 18 up 2.5 pounds for a net weight loss of 21.4. I use this to keep an eye on where my final target weight is. Using my starting lean pounds (from Jan 1), to be average, I would need to drop my weight to 136. Since my lean mass is increasing, however, using my current lean pounds, I would be targeting 140 to be in the “average” range. At this time, I have chosen 145 as my official target weight, assuming that I will continue to gain lean pounds as I ramp up the exercise. So cool to think about being that size again, and knowing for sure that I can get there.

Another observation – Wed of week 18 to Wed of week 19 is my “PAGG-free” week, and also is messed up by a little visitor (which Tim says can stall the best of us). Both of those count against my progress, so I expect great things in the next few weeks.

I am also counting down to a visit to some great friends at the end of the month (she is a marathon runner and in incredible shape) so I am working out very hard from now until then, to get as much benefit in as I can. The last time they saw me I was over 200 pounds and could barely move. YAHHHHHHHHH! (Battle cry!)