The Writing Desk of Jakebe Rabbit

Weight Last Week: 190.7 pounds
Weight This Week: 190.6 pounds
Trending Change: -0.1 pounds
Avg. Calories/Day: 1678

All right, so I'm going to try to get back to being serious about watching my weight, exercising on a regular basis and eating food that's better for me. Hey, it's a new year and that's practically a tradition once you sleep off the blinding hangover. The difficulty with the concept, though, is that you really have to work to identify what you're going after. Losing weight is a pretty simple thing: you just burn more calories than you eat. Getting down to the particulars can be really tough, though. How many calories should I have if I want to maintain my current weight? That is so damned hard to figure out, and I'm still not sure I've got it right. The best thing I can think of to do is count my calories, collect data on weight, and see if I can establish some sort of correlation.

Anyway, that's what I'm posting up there. My weekly weights are measured on Sunday morning, but I really do weigh myself every day and enter it into the Hacker's Diet tracking website. It's a great little thing if I haven't recommended it already. It takes all the data you give it and stretches out a trend for you; the idea is that your weight will fluctuate from day to day, and the best way to establish a trend is to gather as much data as possible and see where it goes. Over time, your trend should start to go down as more and more data points get lower.

You can see that just starting to happen here, though not as much as I'd like. The weight for my trend up to January 1st was 190.7 pounds, and by the 8th it had slipped a tenth. At this rate I'll lose a pound every ten weeks, or five pounds a year. That's nowhere near quickly enough.

Still, the year is young and I only have nine points of data in my little graph! I'm going to stay the course for now just to see if around 1700 Calories per day is enough to get me to lose weight. By the end of the month, I should have a good idea of how my calorie count correlates to my weight, and judging by that and some basic math, I can come up with a hypothesis on a good maintenance count.

The exercise didn't quite get off to the start that I had hoped. I set myself a goal of running at least three times a week but I only managed two. As typically happens, the front of the week was pretty good but I ran out of willpower somewhere in the middle and just couldn't bring myself for that last, success-clinching run closer to the weekend. It didn't help that I'm working with a new stride (barefoot-style, baby!) that's insanely calf-intensive. My legs were very sore pretty much all of last week.

Getting back to exercise on a regular basis might be a difficult proposition this week. The end of it will be spent in a non-stop party setting, so going out for a run regardless of what's going on around me will be pretty difficult to do. The only thing I really should worry about is Saturday, with a planned two or three mile run, but if I get up early enough I should be able to spare an hour or so for it.

So there we are! The first week of the new year sees a really small drop for weight, and things will be hard to manage next week. Still, I'm hopeful I can minimize any damage out there. If you're going to be at the convention this weekend (you know which one) and you see me eating something that's terrible for me...leave me be. I know what I'm doing, and even if it's probably not good it won't make me feel better to be harangued about it! That being said, a gentle nudge to make better choices next time wouldn't hurt.

Weight: 184.0 pounds

( In which a rabbit does pretty well for himself, but has nothing to show for it. )

Weight: 185.0 pounds

( In which a rabbit explores the relationship it has with food. )

Weight: 190.8 lbs.

( Cut for those who'd rather not read about losing weight. )

Weight: 192.2 lbs.

I really fell off with the exercise this week. Most of the reasons I could come up with for this are excuses, so I'll just say I got lazy and talked myself out of going. That's the problem with going to the gym, or counting on that for your exercise: there are so many reasons NOT to go that are much more immediately appealing. The payoff for dedication is something that happens by degrees, and not something you're likely to notice until you find yourself going down a notch on your belt one day. It's much more gratifying to sit home, watch something on TV, and eat something that'll make you feel better.

Anyway, so that's what I did. I'd love to find ways to make my lifestyle more active -- you know, like biking down to the neighborhood store to buy groceries, or maybe even to visit friends in Santa Clara -- but that's not always the most feasible thing. Actually, now that I think about it, there's no good reason why it shouldn't be. That's something I'll have to think about. I know Ryan might dig taking the bike to more places, especially if it means being able to drink a little more. :D That'll be something we need to work up to, though.

On the topic of incidentally active lifestyles, I've found a way to sneak in a mile-long walk through downtown San Jose, through creative scheduling of my mass transit commute home. Now, I take an earlier train, write while in transit, walk while listening to tunes and podcasts downtown, and arrive at the bus stop with a few minutes to spare before the 82 comes and takes me home. Once I'm on the bus, I read. It's a really nice trifecta that I've come to be quite fond of. It doesn't get me home any earlier, alas, but it's something!

The thing that sunk me with the diet last week was candy. I always think that I have a good grip on it, like I can just have a pack of it and stop, and be content with that. It's so not true. It is a well-established fact that a rabbit in possession of candy will be in want of more candy. And, between the Star Wars: Echoes RPG and playing KOTOR over the weekend, I went admittedly overboard.

I'm also having trouble cooking in consistently. Most of the time I start the week with a strong will; this is going to be the week I only get Specialty's once for breakfast and once for dinner. That gets sunk by mid-week; a combination of a late night (and the subsequent wanting to sleep in) and running out of supplies derails me, and I end up buying my food for two out of three meals. On the bright side, I stick to oatmeal or yogurt parfaits for breakfast, and soup or salad for lunch. It's expensive, but I eat fairly healthily.

Still, there's got to be a way to enjoy good and healthy food without having to pay through the nose for it. At this point, it might be best to just take it day by day, get a good food carrier (I'm frankly tired of carrying my lunch in a ghetto used supermarket bag) and work my way up to eating in most of the time. Exercise is more important, though, so I'll be focusing on trying to be consistent with that.