Friday, November 30, 2012

The "Free Lunch" Weight Loss Plan v.018

I continue to climb a minimum of an extra 20 flights of stairs each day. This month it was pretty much the bare minimum every day.


Click to enlarge.

It was a good month, especially compared to last November.

Here's the long-term chart.


Click to enlarge.

Thanksgiving definitely worked against me. You can see the blip in the first chart quite clearly (23rd and 24th). My girlfriend and I have eaten two pumpkin pies since then and are half way through an apple pie. That doesn't even count all the ham I ate. Serious seasonal effect!

So what worked? Well, I had some pent-up walking demand from catching a cold in October. I also had a new pair of waterproof hiking shoes thanks to the recommendation of Mr Slippery (a hiker and blogger). As seen in the following chart, what started off as baby steps just kept growing.


Click to enlarge.

That's 164.5 miles of outdoor walking. No blisters. Hurray!

That said, hello exponential trend failure. Livin' the dream! Let's call the 29th the point of failure since it is raining hard today and the wind is a bit gusty. I was curious how many miles I could comfortably walk in a month. I might try it again at some point. Our dog certainly loved it.

And lastly, let's assume I could double the distance I walk each month and keep doing it every month. That's pretty much the trend in the chart. How far would I need to walk 32 months from now?

164.5*2^32 = 706,522,120,192 miles

Let's assume I walked 24 hours per day. How fast would I need to be moving?

706,522,120,192 miles per 30-day month = 272,578 miles per second

Let's just say that seems more than a bit unlikely. No, sir. Let's just call it an exponential trend failure today and get it over with.



See Also:
The "Free Lunch" Weight Loss Plan v.000

6 comments:

TJandTheBear said...

My 49th b-day is approaching and I don't want my extra weight around for my 50th. If I can manage just 1 pound a week I'll be golden. The race is on!

Stagflationary Mark said...

TJandTheBear,

That's awesome! I wish you well. 1 pound a week is certainly doable.

I'm definitely the 48 year old turtle in the race. As seen in the long-term chart, I'm more of a 1 pound per month kind of guy. No pain, no gain. Literally.

Feel free to post updates on my blog any time you like on how you are doing relative to your goal. Seriously. I'll offer you one free "Hurray!" for every pound lost. :)

This monthly weight update is definitely a motivating force for me. I'd guess I'm at least a few pounds lighter because of it.

Troy said...

1lb a week is perfect. Just enough to see progress every month, but not too fast to pull more muscle off than you need, plus of course 500kcal/day deficit isn't that big a deal once you get used to it.

The key thing is to stick to that 1 lb/week trend no matter what happens. If you happen to gain 5 lbs in a week for some reason, don't fret, just get back on-trend and you'll be OK.

This is what happened to me, I abandoned my eating regimen completely last month (house sitting for two weeks, LOL).

http://i.imgur.com/9mDir.png

shows the excursion, but after 4 weeks back on plan, I'm back within a pound of where I was before I left.

I've gone from a 38" to 33" waist this past year, and was able to score 5 cargo shorts from Kohls at my college size (32-34), which is a good feeling.

My 501s are still an inch or two away, but I'll get there.

REALLY recommend almonds as a midday snack -- it's my diet's secret weapon, 30 almonds and a slice of cheese to hold off hunger between lunch and dinner.

Trader Joe's has some awesome BBQ almonds now. BBQ is good because the spiciness makes it harder to munch on them (I can eat a whole 8 oz can of "honey" cashews, but no way could I get through more than a couple of ounces of bbq almonds).

Stagflationary Mark said...

Troy,

You've done fantastic.

I bet I could eat fewer almonds than you. There's just something about the texture that I don't like all that much. I like almond milk on my cereal though. Go figure.

It's funny. I had a few cashews last night. I was not tempted to eat any more. Why? The Payday candy bar next to the container screamed, "Eat me!" How could I refuse? The damage was minimal. I had a fairly light appetite in general yesterday. The scale reflects that today.

I ate a single slice of swiss cheese later last night. It was satisfying. Like you, cheese works well for me.

TJandTheBear said...

I'm allergic to nuts, so no-go there!

Stagflationary Mark said...

TJandTheBear,

I would certainly like to know what food allergies I have, if any. I doubt I have any serious food allergies, but it would not surprise me if I had minor ones.

As you may recall, I excluded gluten from my diet back in October just to see what would happen. Not much.