Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 23

note: This was written on Thursday night, but didn't get up until Saturday because Blogcritics took a little while to publish it. It's gotta go there first, which is ok with me. But sorry I couldn't help you kill time on Friday.

It’s cold in my house.

It’s a 100-year old (at least) Victorian set on top of a hill near the Carquinez strait. Strong winds have been known to blow in off the water, which doesn’t help on 50-degree Northern California days.

It’s not that cold that bothers me. I’m from Detroit. I embrace outside cold. It’s the heaters in my house. They don’t work. Actually, I should say they do work, they just don’t heat anything outside of a three-foot radius directly in front of them.

Instead, my two roommates and I have turned to space heaters for bedroom warmth. Trouble with space heaters is that don’t want them on at night. That would just waste electricity and give those bastards at Pacific Gas and Electric a few more dollars out of our pockets.

So in the sleeping hours, it can get down to about 55 degrees in my room.

I wake up a little bit before noon, under two blankets and over two pillows, and I lay in bed wishing I didn’t have to get up at all. It’s that indoor chill that I loathe so much, combined with anticipation of those few seconds when that frost hits my naked chest and legs. I hate that moment more than any other in the day. And on one hand, it can’t get any worse, but on the other, the day has already gone to hell.

But I’ve gotten out of bed these last three weeks with little problem, willing to brave the cold and hit the bathroom, then come back into my room, strip down and step on the scale.

In the moment before I climb on, I am convinced that this is the day I’ll have a major breakthrough. In those moments, I weigh at least two pounds less than I did the day before. I am already forming the blog entry for that night, trying to word my bragging just so, so it seems like I am a person who knows what he is doing.

After I get on the scale, I watch the three dashes on the LCS display screen. It’s interesting how this works. Three dashes in a row like Morse Code, representing the numbers I’ll eventually see. They bounce on and off for a few seconds, not willing to reveal my fate. Is it a good day? Is it a bad day? Only the dashes know for sure.

Inevitably they relent, and usually the room gets a little colder.

I’ve stayed the same. I’ve gained a pound somehow while I was sleeping. I’ve lost maybe two-tenths, a negligible number.

And I quickly jump off the scale and punch the air in anger. Why? What did I do wrong? How does this scale continue to defy the simple science of losing weight? Calories burned minus calories consumed should equal success.

I’ve counted. I know how many calories are in me. I have information as to how much I should be burning. Fifteen hundred calories in a day consumed, and a 6-foot-3 inch, 290 pound, 28-year old man should be burning at least 3,000 in a sedentary life.

To lose one pound of fat, you must burn 3,500 calories, so the experts tell me. Do that math. If the calorie counter that I use is correct in telling me I should burn 3,417 calories per day – given my age, height, weight and activity level – and I ingest 1,500 calories per day through four to five strategically spaced meals, then on an average day I am burning 1,917 calories.

Well over a half a pound per day.

Over three weeks, by my calculations – (1,917x21 days)/3,500 -- that is 11.5 pounds.

And at last weigh in, I had lost a total of 10 pounds.

The science tells me this is working, and I can’t honestly deny that 10 pounds in less than a month is real progress.

But I am a hard-headed emotional man. I need to see daily results, no matter what variables are in play. In my mind, 287 one day and 289 the next is failure. The ups and downs of daily information warp my mind. For one, I’ve spent the last week fluctuating between 286 and 289. For another, I was down four pounds the first day and have lost only six since.

But dammit if the math doesn’t add up to a remarkably sensible figure.

But what of the daily defeats I’ve suffered lately, the ones that make me wish I had never gotten out of bed to meet the cold?

With every stagnant weigh-in, and every anger-induced punch of the air, I am driving myself crazier and crazier. The number I see is the number I invest in throughout the day. Every meal is meant to lower that number, every second spent on the elliptical is part of a grand design to never see that number again. But somehow they always seem to pop back up. 289 down to 287 back up to 289, down to 288, back to 289. How am I supposed to gauge progress from that?

Experience. That’s the answer. I remember that I’ve done this before, going from 370 pounds to 275 in six months. How did I do it? When did I weigh in?

I didn’t own a scale back in Colorado. I weighed in at the gym, always after a workout, usually once a week on the same day. The numbers always seemed to be falling. If they didn’t, it wasn’t any huge deal because I had an entire week before I had to face that fate again.

But so many people who know about these things have said I should weigh myself every day, at the same time, on the same scale. But that’s their advice, that’s what works for them and the people who trust them.

What works for me? What do I have to do to get my head on straight throughout this entire process? Why do I feel shame more than triumph? What’s wrong with 10 pounds in three weeks?

Well, for one, it’s not 20 pounds in three weeks.

Also, the number doesn’t seem to go down. When you are posting your daily weight to an audience of who knows how many people (1, 100, 1,000, 10,000?) you can’t take pride in the status quo. I am trying to paint myself as an example of what can happen when an average person takes on an extraordinary task. But as long as the numbers spring upwards, no matter what the time frame or variables, I am simply showing myself to be a failure.

At least in my mind.

So stop doing that. Stop trying to inspire people with daily numbers. After all, I’m not really doing this for you. Instead, I am using you to keep me motivated. If you get something out of it, great. But the bottom line is what works for me.

Daily weigh-ins? They don’t work for me. I can’t handle it. I can’t judge my progress on one day’s fairly arbitrary number. It has to be a real period of time where one slip, or one momentous stand won’t have so much influence on my psyche.

Once a week, on Sunday. That’s the only way I can stay sane. Once a week, with as little expectation as possible. If the number is lower one Sunday than it was the last, then I am doing fine. If it’s higher, then it’s time to figure something else out.

But I won’t break because of the pressure. I won’t let the numbers defeat me. Their influence will not be greater than that of my own mind.