I'm obsessed... er, the case for a daily weigh-in.

Warning: this post might only appeal to the Brittany of 2011 (Brittany 2.0), or to those of you with a fondness for nerdy data analysis.

I admit it, really I do. I've become obsessed with measurements, with scales, with cataloging every thing I eat, with predicting my continuing weight loss trends, with dates and numbers and goals and small steps. I know all this is against Peggy's methodology, since she doesn't want me weighing myself or anything, but I can't imagine how people stay motivated / make corrections to their diets, or goals, or plans, when they don't see any results but for a month at a time. I mean, if nearly a month went by before I realized that my weight loss had stalled, I'd be really down on myself and frustrated that I didn't know it sooner to do something about it. So I advocate a daily weigh-in (weigh-a-day).

My theory is that Peggy doesn't want anyone going to weigh themselves just after a workout (pounds having just been lost by sweating it out), and then to emotionally freak out when they weigh themselves the next morning ("what?!? I've gained weight over night?!? If I'm going to gain weight, I might as well eat something tasty for the extra pounds!"). So she sets this rule that we're supposed to wait for her to weigh us. But I'm not playing the freak-out-over-fluctuations strategy, I'm simply weighing myself each morning, recording it on MyFitnessPal and a handful of spreadsheets (nerdy, I know, I know), and tracking it over time... all very rational, albeit obsessive.

I know that there are those of you out there who say, "its not the weight that matters, its how I feel. That's why I don't weigh myself regularly." If you guys can maintain your weight based on feeling alone, more power to you! But for me, this mentality has been a means of reaching the obese level of weight I was at when I started this journey. "The number didn't matter," so I just let it creep on up there. I didn't even restrict myself when the "feel" of it was wrong, when my clothes stopped fitting, etc. So now, I weigh-a-day.

Still others of you will insist that weight can fluctuate so significantly that you don't want to weigh everyday. I myself know that weight can fluctuate day to day, based on water, time of the month, etc. In fact, one night, I decided to use baking soda to whiten my teeth, and since I don't mind the taste of baking soda, swallowed a whole bunch of it. Turns out that baking soda makes you retain water, maybe even more than salt. Woke up and weighed about 2.5 lbs more than I had the morning before - ack! But anyway, since weight can fluctuate, I don't get upset when I go a day or two at nearly the same weight. But weight shouldn't ever be fluctuating up (unless I've gone on a salt or baking-soda binge, or eat a lot more one day than another), so I continue to weigh-a-day.

These daily weigh-ins help me to know what affects my progress - how much I eat, what I eat, the days I don't work out, etc. There may be slight fluctuations, but over the course of a few days, I can estimate how much weight I should be losing. And then, using my nerdy spreadsheets, I can try to project when I'll freaking reach my goals!! Wheee!

I thought some of you might like to see the spreadsheet I'm using to track my progress so far. I can send you a copy if you're interested in using it for yourself. I've copied from the spreadsheet a chart that predicts my weight (see below). The bottom is my goal weight: 120 lbs. The vertical line represents today. The blue squiggly lines to the left of today are my actual weights, starting waaaay up at 204 lbs, going all the way down to today (171.4 lbs!!). The lines to the right of vertical predict my weight loss, using three different methods. The gray line (I consider this to be a worst-case-scenario-type line) is if I lose 2 lbs/week from now on; that puts me at 120 lbs on April 2, 2011 (sigh). The pink line shows the pace of my weight loss if I continue on my from-the-beginning-of-training (July 19th) average: I'll be at 120 on February 3, 2011 (better). The green line shows the trend of my most recent weight loss (since my last weigh-in on September 20th): it predicts I'll hit 120 on January 18, 2011 (get it, girl!!).



Now the reality is that I will probably be somewhere between green and pink, since continuing to lose weight at this rate (.48 lbs/day) will grow increasingly difficult, the less and less I weigh. I'll put in new copies of this chart every once in a while to see how it changes as time goes on.

Now, for you "the numbers don't matter" sticklers out there, no, I'm not really stuck on the 120 lbs number. For my height (5'4") and "frame" (Medium), my healthy ideal weight is between 108-132 lbs. If I get to 130 lbs (because I'll be a dense, muscly beast) and look the way I want ("feel" the way I want, if you will), then great, I'll stop there. I want to be a size 4-6, be happy in a bathing suit, in shorts, in anything I want to wear. Those are my goals. The chart is clearly not able to predict these things, but really, I want to have a date (or a range of dates) in mind to look forward to reaching my goals, so that I can get to the fun part:

Learning how to maintain this new lifestyle on my own (workouts, eating, etc.).
Shocking people who haven't seen a skinny Brittany since her first year at Samford.
Going to the doctor and not having to worry about what she'll say.
Buying a bathing suit I really love.
Catching someone's eye.
Retooling my entire wardrobe - Clothes I used to love but can't wear now? Skinny jeans? Fitted dresses? Trendy items I don't give a second glance now? Shopping trip, anyone?
A new goal to work on - what should it be?

So that's it, I know it's a boring numbers-based post. But since I started this blog as a way to keep up with my thoughts on this journey as I go through it, I wanted to record for posterity the reasons I find its better to weigh yourself every day. I'm not trying to convince anyone other than Brittany 2.0. Cheers!