Goal Update

Whoops - I meant to write something up as a follow-up to the Mini-Goal I set for March 28th.  My apologies for missing that mark; I was also supposed to set a new stretch goal for May 4th.

Mini-Goal Results

As of March 12, I weighed 258.4 pounds and my goal was to reach 245.5 pounds by March 28 (5% body weight loss).  This was close to the original number I wanted to reach by March 5th.
Actual Weight March 28th: 250.8
Difference: 7.6 lbs (3%)

Holy cow, I missed my goal by 2%!  I could write a book about The Extra 2%...oh, wait a minute...

Updated Goal: May 4th

I never truly set a weight loss goal on Monday March 31st, which was what I was supposed to do.  Let's set one retro-actively - I think that's still fair, considering my current progress (more on that in a bit).
Weight as of end of day March 31: 251.9 lbs
Goal weight, end of day May 4th: 219.6 lbs
Weight Loss Goal: 12.8% (32.2 lbs)

What I did to get that number, actually, was to take my weight on March 12 (258.4) and reduce it by 15% (which is the 219.6 number).  So in total, I'd like to have lost 38.8 pounds.

The reason why I think it's fair to set this goal retro-actively is because my progress of late has not been great.  As of Sunday, I finished the week at 249.2 pounds - but as of last night, I was back up to 250.2.  This is not a coincidence, or hitting a wall; quite simply, Vanessa and I haven't been able to get out and be active as much as we would like.

No excuses or anything, but that's just the reason why progress has stagnated.  There are a few external reasons, but to be perfectly honest, we should be able to overcome these and get our butts to the gym.  That's not our reality though, so I'm OK with this "lack" of progress (though I should point out that we're not putting weight back ON, so this is still GOOD).

Obviously, we need to get back into our good habits that had some really positive results.  In short, that was going to the gym 3-4 times a week (our goal is 4) and eating well.  We haven't really changed our eating habits, so we only have one place to look.

We have to do more than just say we'll get back to the habits - here are some things that I hope will work for us, and maybe someone else might find them useful.

• Assigning a weekly value to our gym visits; we have a weekly goal of a minimum of 4 visits per week, so based on what we're paying for our gym membership, we can assign a cost per visit.  Any fewer visits than that and the cost per visit jumps, making the investment incredibly bad.  At 4 visits, the cost per visit is pretty reasonable right now - so from a financial point of view, it makes sense to keep going!
• I recently borrowed Fit To Curl by John Morris from the library.  The curling season is officially over for me, but I intend on starting up again in October.  I'd like to improve my fitness level specifically for the sport, which is what the book is designed to do.  But I feel that a lot of the exercises and stretches will help for the upcoming softball season, so I should see some benefits there too.  In short, a focused training program will help get us out to the gym and doing something other than bike/weights/stretch/go home.

Obviously there will be some audibles called during the summer - I'm willing to flip some outdoor activity for a visit to the gym, for instance - where working out will not be ideal.  We'll just have to deal with those circumstances when we get there.