Fun fact, when I was a kid, I absolutely LOVED amusement parks. Thankfully, my parents were kind enough to indulge me whenever we’d visit a different city to check them out if there was one near by. In fact, for a while I wanted to be a roller coaster designer for a long while.
Unfortunately, when you’re in your late 30s and the roller coaster is your weight, the ride is less fun.
What got me thinking about this is I decided to plot out all my weigh-ins from the duration of this blog into a graph. It really was eye opening and interesting to see.
But first, I’ll start with the good news:
Today I weighed in at 10 lbs below my new “official” largest. Back in June of 2018 I weighed in at 320 lbs. I had some ups and downs and weighed as much as 319 back on March 10th.
In the month since that weigh in, I’ve lost 9 lbs in a month and finally have some solid momentum going for me once again.
Looking Retrospectively
Seeing this chart and thinking “what the heck did I do between last June and this March? So, here’s the lifetime graph of my journey, from strictly a weight loss perspective.
For the graph I had a high of 320 since it’s my new high and a low of 260 since my lowest was 261.4 on April 4, 2015.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I didn’t weigh myself for YEARS prior to starting this graph, so who knows what the numbers were. Although, if going by clothing I could say it never reached incredibly higher than that initial point.
Also, those long straight lines are obviously where I had breaks and didn’t weigh myself for long periods of time. I also added in some comments as to why those long periods of no weigh-ins happened.
Take Aways
1: Don’t get too excited just yet
I’m proud of this last month, losing 9 lbs is no joke, but you can see that motivation can be fleeting, so I need to stay focused. Looking at the big picture, I’m still 7 lbs heavier than my initial “heaviest ever” weigh in.
2: I still don’t handle stress well
It’s no coincidence that all the labels correspond to work related stress. I know I’ve written acknowledging this in the past, but seems like I haven’t done much to fix that.
3: Largest surprise, I handled the jump to freelancing really well
Considering I was “forced” into freelancing and really struggled hard during that time, I didn’t have a giant weight gain. Taken, I also didn’t weigh myself for 5-6 months, so I COULD have had a giant weight gain, but seeing as when I picked back up, I was below the previous time I had weighed myself, that’s optimistic.
4: 2nd largest surprise, working on location was worse for my waist than the bad work situation
This was very surprising to see. Working on location was stressful, but I look back on it fondly. I would do it again. In fact, I almost DID do it again, but that job fell through (and I’m almost glad about it after seeing this).
The bad work situation was completely demoralizing and really mentally difficult to me to where it still affects me today. Also, that one rogue weigh in seems strange, so I’d be willing to negate that one and have the line be at an angle instead of straight up. Even considering that, the line for working on-location was steeper!
EDIT: Nevermind putting too much stock into the steepness of the gains, I suppose since there is no data, can’t say exactly how steep the slope was. Although there was a SIGNIFICANT higher number of total pounds gained over the location job.
5: My initial weight loss set crazy expectations
I’m still baffled as to why it happened that way, maybe 4 years of getting older really makes the difference. But looking at the numbers I lost those 40 lbs in just under 3 months!
The first two weeks were incredibly quick. I lost 16 pounds the first two weeks, then 9 additional pounds the following two weeks to mark a 25.1 pound loss the first month. So, I suppose months 2 and 3 of that were actually at a slight slower pace than what I did this past month, since that was an average of 7.5 lb loss per month to my lowest.
This time, however, I did NOT have an initial big drop like that. As you could see, each of my restarts have had A drop, but none have been so dramatic as that first one. This is a good to look at to keep perspective for when I’m mad at myself for “being unable to do what I’ve already done.”
Where Things Are Now
I feel I’m in a good spot. My body feels primed for losing once again. Strength wise, I feel only a notch below what I was when I was lifting my heaviest dumbbells. Treadmill wise, I’m still a bit slow and my endurance needs work, but it’s improving.
This past week I feel like I’ve “flipped a mini switch” in that things felt a little easier, and to be honest, working out was a little more fun.
I’m still digesting this information, if any of you have anything they’ve noticed, let me know! I’ll keep adding to this as I go along and see where this thing goes!