Weight Management: Retrospective and Plan

At the beginning of the year, I posted my 2012 Weight Management Plan which I started off with the following line:

2011 was not really a stellar year for weight management.

Sadly the same could be said for 2012. The first two months of the year were good as I was able to trim down my weight from 175 to about 170. After that, I had difficulty breaking the 170 barrier, and eventually started to watch my weight increase. I was able to stop the "bleeding" occasionally, but near the end of November, I found myself in the upper 180s. I put together a good solid effort in December to get myself back down to 180, and that's where I stand today.

I made some interesting observations about my weight in 2012 especially in regards to running. First off, being lighter didn't seem to make me faster. I think this is more so an observation that dieting (cutting calories) not surprisingly affects my athletic performance. I would expect that if I hit my ideal weight (whatever that is ... I was hoping to figure it out this past year) and stayed there, I'd see an improved performance since I'd be lighter and eating normally. My second observation (which affects my ability to commit to losing more pounds) is that at 178 I can run a half-marathon. It's hard to be disappointed with my weight if I can carry it for 13.1 miles.

In the past, I've always targeted losing a pound a week (which requires a 500 calorie deficit from maintenance calories). Since I'm currently at a "functioning" weight and since I've signed up for a half-marathon in March, I've set my plan on Lose It to a goal weight of 170 targeting a half pound a week (a 250 calorie deficit per day). I think the additional 250 calories will give me a reasonable target that will have me keeping my calories in check without spending too much time being hungry due to the diet.

At a rate of a half pound a week, I would hit 170 in mid-May. I plan to re-evaluate the plan after the half-marathon in March when I should be roughly 175 if all goes well.

When comparing weights, I like to look at my average weight over a week compared to the same measurement in the next. With that in mind, my baseline weight from this last week of 2012 is:

Dates	Avg Weight	Max Weight	Min Weight
12/24-12/30	179.9	181.0	178.8

The downside to comparing weights this way is that the performance of the end of the previous week affects the next week's average. Since I didn't do that well keeping myself in check calorie-wise this past week, I'm not sure that I'll see a half pound loss after the first week under the new plan, but I should see a bit of a loss, I would expect.