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Last updated 03-24-06
I love graphs. They make everything just seem... official.
And since we do live in the age of computers, well, no reason not to have graphs for everything, right?
Here a few of mine. They were drawn by a program called
Fitday, a program I highly recommend to anyone serious about dieting.
You can read more about this program in my How I'm Doing It page.
I've just added new pictures of how my charts look after I've been doing this for
over a year. I think it adds a useful perspective of how the weight loss over time profile can
change for someone (specifically, me) over the long haul. In my case, it's certainly true that
losing weight in the beginning was alot different than it has been lately. It wasn't easy to drop
the first 50 pounds, mind you, but it seemed to be a much more consistent process. I had a weight
loss almost every single week, and rarely ever a gain. Since I've gotten around the two hundred mark,
though, things have been more chaotic. It seems that I have wider day to day weight fluctuations,
and the downward slop of my weekly loses has certainly changed pitch. Still, I am losing.
One bad week does not make my whole program a failure.
So, for me at least, losing weight is a journey. I haven't kept the
same pace in the middle of it that I maintained in the beginning. Still, I am going to get to my
destination. I hope these graphics can help illustrate to others who might be experiencing a
change in their rate of weight loss that this doesn't mean doom of their chances of hitting goal!
Now, on with the charts!
This was how my weekly weigh in's looked after I had been on my diet as of around July of 05, when I had lost around 40 pounds. Nice and even, pretty much. Dieting doesn't seem that hard to do when you're seeing these kind of results.
Again, this chart looks like it's showing a pretty even weight loss trend. Oh, it's clear that the slope is flattened out a bit around the holiday season starting in November, but clearly it is still going down if we look at the big picture. Not as fast as before, perhaps, but I'm not in a race with anyone, and happy that today I'm the lightest I've been in over 15 years. I know that I will keep getting lighter, too. Nothing about this charts suggests it's about to go flatline on me now.
This seems to be telling a very different story, though. Though the overall trend is clearly downward, this is clearly far from being smooth progress. To be honest, I've managed to have as much as a 6 pound difference in one day, through creative usage of a hangover and a trip to the movies (with snacks) and then a visit to a local barbeque place (washed down with several glasses of sweet tea). If I could offer one bit of advice to new dieters, it would be "Don't get freaked out by your daily weigh ins. The long run is what matters. Progress doesn't have to he smooth to matter."
The daily weigh-ins looks even more scary to me in this graph, at least from the 11/18 mark. The more weight I lose, the more important it becomes for me to take the daily's in stride, and focus on the big picture.
I started using the PC version of Fitday sometime in April. The program directed me to make a weight goal, so picked one based on me losing about a pound a week, till I hit my target goal of 140. My actual weight loss was averaging about a pound and a half, however. This chart simply shows how I was doing versus how I said I wanted to be doing (the red line is the goal target graph). It sure felt nice to be so far ahead of goal!
Well, it was nice while it lasted, but the bad holiday season put me over the red line. This pretty graphically illustrates why I am leery of the notion of setting goal dates at all. Looking just at the recent trend, it would be easy for someone to think "Well, she's slipping. Weight loss is hard, it isn't too surprising that she's finally failed." Failed? No. I'm at the lowest weight I've been at in years, and I feel better for it. I've had to buy new clothes a couple of times. My husband says I'm looking better than I have in a long time. I'm still losing weight, when all is said and done. It seems to me that very often, setting goals just adds stress to an already stressful process. To diet we have to battle hunger, old habits, other well meaning people who sometimes make unhelpful comments or suggestions, and other pitfalls that make long term dieting a pain in the ass. I've seen comments in the support groups I belong to from people who lament that they're failing in meeting their goals, and then soon the are no longer heard from again. What if they didn't have the red line to worry about? What if they just took joy in the fact that they were losing weight, regardless of the rate?
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