Dave Dash

Back to My Pre-California Weight

2010-05-23T00:00:00-07:00

About a month back I hit a milestone, I went down to my pre-California weight.

Here's a chart of my weight since August 2007, a few months before I moved to California.

Here are the events:

Move from Minneapolis to SF Bay
Visit Minneapolis
Visit Minneapolis
Leaving Yahoo!
Move to San José
Try iChange

The Basics

There's nothing shocking. The more I ate and less I exercised, the more I gained weight. Travel was an easy way to gain weight because I never checked in regularly. Moving to a condo with an awesome gym made regular exercise a breeze.

I tried out iChange which offered one-on-one monitoring. That got me eating healthier food, so it put most of my calories to good use:

Sugar and saturated fats were all but eliminated from my diet and slowly reintroduced when I could moderate them.
Counting calories helped reset my internal calorie tracker. I still don't do it enough, so I try to simply eat better.
Water tastes better the more I drink it. I drink a lot of soda still, but there are days when I can completely avoid it.
Exercising a lot is nice. I get to eat more. Exercising early works best for me.
Eating more whole grains felt better. The food was flavorful.
Balanced meals were tricky, though eating more fruit and vegetables made me less hungry for higher calorie items.
I had to start by doing everything: eating better, exercising, etc. Doing one thing at a time was a failure. There were no shortcuts at the beginning.

Now I stay pretty much on track with losing weight. The days I gain a bit of weight, I understand why, and I am usually able to resolve it quickly. Therefore weight loss is no longer stressful.

So with about 10lbs less of weight from the beginning of this year, I can sling on a Moby-wrap with my son (when he decides to be born) and it'll feel like nothing.

The Weight Resolutions

2009-01-02T00:00:00-08:00

Jim over at Hiawatha Cyclery inspired me to post my weight resolution.

Ever since my wedding two and a half year ago where I was at a significant low in terms of weight (160 lb.), I've been gaining, slowly and painfully. I'm at 186.2 lb.

Numbers say that this is close to being obese. Whereas just under 160 is "Normal Weight".

That's fine and dandy, and should be a good enough indicator... but the real indicator is this. If you have "normal weight" imagine wrapping your midsection several times around with rubber, 25-30 lb. should do it. This is known as the spare tire.

Not only are you walking around with this excess weight, you're also trying to sit comfortably with it, get up from sitting down with it. It turns doing anything into a chore. Not to mention I have high cholesterol, and I know this is one of those things I need to lower or "Very Bad Things" (tm) will happen.

I keep trying, and retrying ways to keep my weight under control, so this is just another concerted effort. It's not "new" for New Years, but maybe writing about it will help. I hope by the years end to be below 170lbs. This is an easier goal, and I'll probably adjust this number once I meet up with my doctor.

I keep good track of my weight, and I can see the trends it makes. For every day my trend weight falls below my target weight, I'll try to reassess and see what I can do to better my health. These usually are some combination of eating different and working out more.

Weight Goal within Reach

2006-05-30T00:00:00-07:00

Yesterday I finally reached that target weight, 159.6 pounds. If I can maintain this weight, that would put me at a BMI of 25, which is the border for "Normal weight" and "Overweight." My goal since sometime last year was to meet or beat this weight. Judging from my past performance it could take me as long as a few weeks to just over a month to maintain that weight. Since I know my goal is to be at this weight by June 17th, I'll be putting a lot more effort into continuing to lose weight.

Once the wedding is finished and after firmly nailing down my goal, I'll post a detailed summary of my year of weight loss. It was easier than I expected to drop the 15-25 pounds. Also, once this goal is nailed down, I'll come up with a new goal that gets me firmly into the healthy weight category. Stay tuned.