First, some background: I cannot "win" when it comes to checking progress by stepping on a scale. If I'm doing better than expected then I tend to back off on my effort and if worse than expected gives me an excuse to give up. So in the 19 years since I gained 100 lbs due to a job change, I have not really lost a significant amount. However for various reasons, had decided last April that it was time to remove that 100 lbs (nothing like rushing into it, eh?).
For nutritional reasons, I had already been tracking my eating on mypyramidtracker.gov and knew I could also track physical activity there and it would give me an energy balance. It includes a running energy balance average. I calculated that to lose 1 lb. every third day, I had to keep that average running at -1167. (I know, I've already lost the non-geeks, but for you data nerds like me I have to share this).
So I've been doing this since April 20 and according to my calculations, should be down 24 lbs. Of course to prove this plan works, I was going to have to step on actual scale. So this morning I weighed in at the gym and sure enough, I'm down 24 lbs!
I just had to share this with others who have found the scale a dangerous tool. I had kind of hesitated about posting this until I noticed that there some others out there that play with numbers and graphs.
It sounds like there are other tracking programs out there that will track this as well, I'm just most familiar with the mypyramid website so that's what I used. So if anyone wants to try this and needs help navigating through that site, let me know.
