Day 51: Weighing In On The Journey

It’s not just about travel here or seeing new places. It’s really about us getting healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s about eating the right foods and losing weight.

I have severe health challenges that have affected my quality of life for years. I am on multiple medicines for high blood pressure and diabetes, and much of this goes back to my weight. One major part of this quest is for me to reduce it.

Setting Goals and Tracking Progress

I finally got a scale since I forgot to bring ours from the US. I ordered one on Shopee and it arrived a few weeks ago. Last week I decided to start weighing myself. Back in April, at a doctor’s appointment, I weighed 378. That gave me a baseline for my short-term goals when we began this quest.

I wanted to lose 50 pounds in the first six months. That meant getting down to 328, and I knew it was a reachable goal. That’s about 2 pounds a week, which is on the higher end of the healthy range.

At the end of July, the doctor’s scale showed 368. I had managed to lose some weight in those three months. That puts my new goal at 318, though I’m rounding it to 320. I think it’s very doable.

Choosing a Method

The challenge now is measuring and calculating weight loss. Some say you should weigh in once a week since daily numbers can discourage you with normal ups and downs. There’s truth to that. Your weight can swing several pounds a day depending on meals, water, clothes, or even when you last used the toilet.

But weighing once a week still leaves you at the mercy of those same variations. Some people will say the number on the scale is the truth, no matter what.

I’ve decided to weigh myself daily and, in true data nerd fashion, I’m calculating a 3-day and 7-day moving average. I’ve got 5 days of data now, which means I can start sharing weekly updates here by Sunday..

I look forward to keeping you posted as I move forward.

This article also appears on my Substack. You can support our quest and subscribe here: Day 51 Update.