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I’ve been trying to work out more frequently. I mean, August Home has a rather nice gym, and employees get free membership, so why not take advantage of it? And while I don’t think I’ll ever be a huge health nut, seeing as how I consider beer and pizza to be an appropriate foundation for any meal, any day or time of the week, I still wouldn’t mind being a little more fit than I am now.

Which is why I’m signed up for a weekly circuit-training class through August Home. I think I’ve mentioned it in passing here before. Once a week, I pay $5 for someone to hurt me for an hour. And you know what? I can tell it’s making a bit of a difference. And on the weeks when I can convince myself to get into the gym for more than just that one night, it makes an even bigger difference.

But I’m finding it’s tough for me these days to keep up a regular exercise regimen without the external motivation a class provides. And I think I’ve mentioned this to Amanda one time too many, because now she’s trying to talk me into signing up for a weekly Yoga class, also provided through August Home. But I dunno. I mean, it’s yoga. You see what I mean? Weight lifting and cardio I can get behind, but I’m not sure if I can talk myself into yoga. Admittedly, womens yoga clothes are pretty hot in that “I just got back from the gym” sort of way (at least the stuff at Yoga-Clothing.com is), but the men’s options seem a little bit… California.

So what thinks you, snarky audience? Should I consider taking up yoga? Or should I stick with more testosterone-friendly exercise regimes like jogging, lifting weights, and smashing rocks together?

Goooooaaaaaalll!

As of this morning, I am at 175.5 pounds, which is just half a pound over my goal weight. And since I was actually ~below~ my goal weight yesterday, and celebrated this fact by gorging at my friendly neighborhood Mongolian grill last night, I think half a pound is close enough.

Weight: I’ve lost 30 pounds in the last 11 weeks, or just over 2.5 pounds/week, which is almost exactly what I was shooting for. As the graph above shows, while I wouldn’t exactly want to ski down that slope, it does move fairly consistently downwards. And I’m happy about that. Also of note: the two biggest upward spikes coincide with visits with Amanda’s parents. I don’t think that’s coincidence. ;)

Intake: I averaged just under 1300 calories/day consumed over the last month, which is pretty consistent with the rest of the diet. After exercise is figured in, this gave me just under a 1300 calorie/day deficit. Since a 1300 daily deficit works out to around 2.6 pounds/week lost, I’d say my dashboard calculations are pretty darn accurate over the long term. :)

Exercise: I’ve averaged just over 400 calories/day burned exercising this month. I’m pretty proud of that number, as it’s the equivalent of 3 miles jogged/day. Not that I actually ~did~ jog 3 miles per day. Although with Amanda out of town this last weekend (she was in Indiana for a Dave Matthews concert), I managed 10.6 miles between Friday and Sunday. ;)

So we’re going to go ahead and call this Diet: Accomplished. What does this mean? Well, you’re not going to get weekly Crap Rob Put in this Mouth updates anymore. I’m sure you’ll miss them. Also, I’m going to try to quit using my Dashboard for a while, and I’m not going to weigh myself every day anymore. I want to see if 11 weeks is sufficient time to have developed generally healthy eating habits. Fingers crossed. :)

Also also, I know I promised a more interesting update last week, but last week was busy, so I’m going to try to get one out in the next day or two.

Things are looking better this week. Yay for boomeranging weight loss!

Weight: I was at 177 pounds this morning, which is down a full 5.5 pounds from last week. Of course, I was over-inflated due to an unusually large excess of carbs and so forth, so that weight came off fast. And I’m betting I was dehydrated this morning, as I lost two pounds in the night and I don’t really feel like I earned them mowing the lawn.

Exercise: Pitiful! I averaged under 300 calories/day burned. Two days last week, I did nothing more strenuous than shower. I didn’t jog once last week, either, primarily due to really crappy weather (either raining, or 95 degrees, or raining AND 95 degrees). Come to think of it, some of my weight loss might actually be muscle loss. If so, I’ll end up with an annoyingly small weight loss (or even a small weight gain) this coming week, because I’m hoping to get back into a regular workout schedule again, starting with lap swimming in a few minutes.

Intake: I’ve managed to behave generally well, here. I had a burrito from El Aguila one night to celebrate the last day of my Spanish class, but I saved half of it for lunch the next day. I went to the State Fair, too, but limited myself to a pork chop and water for the evening (and that, my friends, is willpower). My low-ish intake this week is probably the only thing that saved my diet. Well, that and my atrophying muscles. Go them.

Weight-wise, all this means I’m only two pounds from my goal, with two weeks left to go (my original, arbitrarily determined goal was 30 pounds in 12 weeks). Even with a bit of muscle gain and a weight-gain rebound to compensate for my weight-loss rebound, I just might be able to make it. Yay a second time!

When I first decided to start losing weight again a couple of months ago, I knew I was going to need a little bit of external motivation. No man is an island, et cetera and so forth, particularly when stranded on a dessert island in a sea of nougat. I also knew that I wanted to pay careful attention to my progress: if I progressed too slowly there was little point in eating rice cakes in lieu of chocolate cakes, and if I made too much progress at once I would worry as to health risks (such as hyperskinnia). I also decided, early on, that this diet should have graphs.

From this understanding was borne the Weight Loss Dashboard. At first, the Dashboard was just a few Excel worksheets thrown together in a few hours of geeky excitement at work. It worked well, however, and I started to spend free time here and there improving it: I wrote functions that self-corrected if I forgot to add data for a day, or didn’t calculate certain figures if I hadn’t given enough information to make those data accurate. I also worked to make it more attractive and consistent as a total package.

And then a friend saw me using it one day and asked to have a copy, and I gave it to him. And then another friend asked. And another. And I started to think to myself, “self… maybe I’m on to something here.” And so I spent a few more hours tweaking things, wrote a quick-start guide, and packaged the whole bugger up.

This is how we come to the commercialization of the Weight Loss Dashboard. For just $5.99 (as a testing starting price… it may rise or fall in the future), you can get yourself a copy of the Dashboard to use or abuse as you see fit. I think it’s a fair price: you’d spend about the same amount cheating on your diet at McDonald’s.

I have a fair bit of faith in the Dashboard — It’s helped me lose over twenty pounds in the last nine weeks. I believe it could help other people reach their goals, as well. If you’re interested, I have a purchase page set up.

So close, yet so far…

Weight: I’m a pound lighter today than I was last Monday. I managed to lose a ~lot~ of weight at the beginning of the week (5.5 pounds by Saturday morning!), and managed to gain most of it (4.5 pounds) back by this morning. So I was, briefly, below 180 pounds. I even managed to lose weight between Friday and Saturday, despite eating nachos and pie for dinner. I’m attributing my success to the fact that neither stayed in my stomach for long, due to the inclusion of seven various shots of liquor and eight or more glasses of beer while eating said nummies. It’s a good thing my birthday only comes around once a year.

Exercise: I was good at the beginning of the week, worse later on. I managed 90 minutes swimming, 70 minutes jogging, and around 200 minutes walking for exercise last week, or around 50 minutes of exercise in some form per day. I jogged a 5k in just over 30 minutes, which had me feeling pretty good. My plan is to start adding longer distances back in to my routine: I hadn’t noticed, but I’d fallen into a pattern of shorter distances at higher speeds, and really, that’s not as good for me in terms of weight loss as is slower and longer.

Intake: Hoo boy. It really depends on my estimates, which weren’t great. The lowest number is 920 calories on Friday, but that’s assuming I correctly calculated how many calories I consumed, and then correctly calculated how many of those calories came back up later on. I’ve averaged around 1800 calories/day for the last three days, assuming my fast food guestimations are accurate. I’m not sure they are.

My spreadsheet estimates that I have around three weeks of dieting left until I hit 175 pounds. I’d say it’s probably pretty close. And even if I hit it before then, it’ll take a few days/weeks of playing around with food before I figure out how much I can eat in a day without gaining or losing weight.