Yay, another successful week.

Baseline: 301.9
Last Week:  299.4
This week: 296.2
Change this week: –3.2
Total Change: –5.7

So, three weeks in and I am 2.7 lbs ahead of schedule. That’s nice. I seem to remember this kind of thing from before, that the first few weeks are comparatively easy to show big progress. I assume that is the universe’s way of encouraging success. On the other hand, I am now almost exactly the weight I was two years ago, when I was so horrified at how heavy I was that I started a weight loss program. That time I made it down to about 261 lbs in four months, leveled out there for a month or so, and then slowly gained it all back and then some. That’s what I really fear, and what I hope that this weekly blogging will help prevent this time.

It was a successful week (on many levels). First, let’s get the numbers out of the way:

Baseline: 301.9

Current: 299.4

Difference: –2.5

So, I’m a half pound ahead of plan, which is good. Because of the scale issue last week I have no idea how much of that was week 1 and how much was week 2. I was genuinely nervous when I got home and stepped on the scale. On the one hand I spent a week constantly walking up and down the entire length of the Bellagio conference space (not a trivial distance), but on the other hand I also spent that week having big social dinners. And of course I spent the week away from my normal exercise. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning (my ear is still driving me nuts), but I’ll be back out on my skates on Tuesday morning. Yay!

8/7/11 - 4
8/10/11 - 7

Running total of the number of time Ben has ridden Snow White's Scary Adventures, as of 8/10/11:
3,236

So, like the guy said in Airplane, it looks like I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue. The good news: as of Friday the moving average for my weight was at 301.1 - a drop of .8 lbs and right on track with losing a pound per week. The inconclusive news: Friday morning I flew to Las Vegas for Travel Mart, and although my room has a bathroom scale in it, that scale is wildly different from my scale at home (or possibly I gained six pounds on my flight, which seems unlikely). I am not concerned about which scale is more accurate per-se, but the moving average is based on the numbers for my home scale, and if it is inaccurate it should at least be consistently inaccurate.So, I am going to call this week a victory but with an asterisk. My real concern is that this week in Vegas will knock me off track. On the one hand i am doing a *lot* of walking, but on the other hand there are a lot of social gatherings and food. I am trying to be responsible, drinking lots of water and not overeating, but I am more than a little...

So, there’s no way to sugar coat this: I’m fat. I’ve been fat for a long time. To varying degrees in the past few years I have been somewhat less fat, but at the moment I am the largest I have ever been in my life. I stepped on the scale last week for the first time in months, and I weighed in at over 300 lbs. for the first time in my life. This has to stop.

Last week I took Ben to Blizzard Beach, and the exciting news is that whereas in the past he has mostly just wanted to swim around in the lazy river and maybe go out into the wave pool for a while, this time he wanted to do slides. Lots and lots of slides. The thing about the slides is that you have to pick up your raft and then walk up long flights of stairs to the top of the hill. I was absolutely thrilled that Ben was craving something so entirely age-appropriate, and I wanted him to be able to go on as many slides as he wanted. But he isn’t independent enough to be trusted to walk up to the top by himself and come down the slide by himself, so I...