I seem to have passed the 190-pound mark. In the direction of zero, that is. After a couple months bouncing around between 190 and 192 regardless of activity, I was starting to wonder if I’d plateauxed. That’s the wrong metaphor. “Valleyed.” From 210 to 200 took all of a month — too fast, I know — and after two weeks hovering around 200 pounds, the next eight pounds came off in about the same too-fast amount of time. And then stability.

I weigh myself every morning. You’re not supposed to, according to some people I’ve heard: weigh yourself once a week so that you don’t get overinvolved in the inevitable little daily swings of a pound or two. I find this advice helpful only to those people who don’t know anything about math. If your weight curve over time has a lot of daily variation — “noise” in the data — the best way to get an accurate idea of the true trend is with more data, not less. Weigh yourself every Sunday morning and you may think you’ve gained a pound in a week, whereas a daily reading might tell you that the first Sunday was abnormally low and the second abnormally high, and you’d actually lost two pounds.

I weigh myself every morning when I am as unburdened with food and drink as possible. I don’t sweat the statistical static. I’ve dropped down below 190 a couple times in the past month, usually the day after a big hike, and then bounced back up the next day after drinking enough water. I’ve now been below 190 for almost a week.

I’m not dieting. I’m not denying myself food. There are a few things I’m not nearly as interested in eating, at least not in my formerly usual amounts. Ice cream, for instance: A half cup will often sate me where a pint did not ten years ago. I’ve mainly lost the desire for starches, and the desire to eat past the point of fullness. But I practice moderation in my moderation. On Thursday morning I weighed 188.8, and I had a day of exercise planned Friday, and I’d just been reading a book on the ecology and economics of the Maine lobster, so I ordered one at dinner. It came with a steak and a few grilled prawns. Raymond, the restaurant owner, loves us, as does his wife Jiny, the cook and real boss, and we usually find ourselves given a plate of free appetizers we don’t always want, so add a couple chicken wings and fried potstickers to my intake, as well as the asparagus with butter that came with the shellfish. Waiting for our check, we looked up and saw Raymond bearing down on our table with a creme brulée we hadn’t ordered. We were trapped. Friday morning I weighed 188.2. I’d lost half a pound. Probably because I didn’t eat the mashed potatoes. Also: poached eggs and scrapple for lunch. Imagine if I’d fasted. But if I’d fasted, I’d have felt like I was giving something up. I sure didn’t feel like I gave up any food on Thursday.

The thing is I’m moving. Half an hour a day of sweating and breathing hard, is all, except on hike days. And that’s fun. Half an hour a day, according to the fitness pundits, changes one’s metabolism to burn fat rather than accumulate it. I don’t know whether I buy that: it seems simplistic. But it’‘s working for me. I feel like I’ve discovered some nasty, unfair indulgent little secret: I’m enjoying life more and feeling better and eating whatever the hell I want, and I have now lost a bit more than 40 pounds since November. (Two thirds of the way to my long-off, pipe-dream goal.) I’m in the best shape of my life at 46, which could be grounds for mortified embarrassment but which I relish instead. And I still sit on my ass and watch TV, and sigh at the quack nostrums promising weight loss without changing your lifestyle. I’ve lived that lifestyle, the comfort gorging and lethargy and depression. I sure as hell don’t find it worth hanging onto.

Note:Many old comments were lost in a database crash in 2008. Some conversations may seem to make less sense than they would have. A few will make more sense now.

1. 
   pz 2006 08 19 at 2:01:55 pm

   This is weird. Do we have some psychic connection or something? A while back, we were both giving up caffeine. Now we’re both in the process of working down our weight. And I’m in exactly the same place you are, hovering about 190, and trying to get lower with that sensible combination of exercise and moderation.

   I haven’t quite had the nerve to make my progress public like this, though.

2. 
   Rob G 2006 08 19 at 5:23:24 pm

   There’s definitely something to that nasty little secret. It was no concern for me until my forties, when my knee seriously cut into my activities. I discovered that as long as I ran (not jogged) 20 minutes, five times a week, no weight-watching necessary. The 20-minute run was, for these purposes, equivalent to a 30-minute jog or a hardish one-hour bike ride.

   Now, for the first time in my life, it’s difficult to maintain that minimum weight-worry-free regimen. The lesson? Be kind to your joints. All of them.

   I never really understood the weighing thing. My major criterion for being concerned about extra pounds has been the BGOBAQF (Bus Going Over Bump Abdominal Quiver Factor).

3. 
   tigtog 2006 08 20 at 1:45:07 am

   Chris, you’ve inspired me.  This year I’ve been very inactive, and I’ve stacked on the kilos.  I was just about to go down to the green-grocer - I’ll get my shopping-carrier with the wheels and walk down instead of driving.  I’ll check back in next week and see if I can keep on doing it.

4. 
   Charles 2006 08 21 at 11:01:01 am

   Congratulations! 

   (And Rob, I love the BGOBAQF.)