“Dad, before you blame the dryer, have you ever considered stepping on the bathroom scale?” – Frasier
Pugsley, after a particularly bad binge a decade or so ago . . .
One of the things that I do to keep myself motivated while exercising is to watch Youtube videos about people who’ve done amazing things. I do this while I climb endless stairs to nowhere at the gym while the sweat runs down me like money through a government agency.
Now, keep in mind, there’s a component of survivor bias associated with these videos. I have yet to see a video put together by someone who said:
“I started this diet at 245 pounds, and finished at 260 pounds plus now Nutrasystem® owns my spleen and just sold it to a Chinese billionaire to pay for all of the food I ate – I’m an utter failure. Oh, and my wife left me for Mickey Rourke.”
No, those videos don’t get made. And is it just me that I think that Mickey Rourke might smell like dried leather and day-old potato salad? Unrefrigerated potato salad.
So, I watch these videos. At ten weeks in, sometimes motivation is about as high as a Baptist teetotaler on temperance Tuesday, especially after having climbed over nine vertical miles. A quote from one of the videos struck me – it was Penn Jillette (I’ve talked about him earlier, here) talking about his weight loss. And his comment wasn’t the point he was trying to make, it was just an aside: “I don’t know how much I weighed. No one weighs themselves at their heaviest.” This really made me pay attention. And think. Wow. That is a really profound truth.
Why is that so profound?
My theory is that our brains create reality distortion fields that allow us to ignore certain things, or mark them as insignificant. Then it hit me. I can ignore or get used to the way I might look in a mirror, but I cannot ignore the actual weight shown on the scale. I can’t hide from it, I can’t explain it away.
The second data point was that Penn posted his weight to his friends as he, quite single mindedly, proceeded to lose the weight equivalent of a fifth grader. Penn posts to his friends, I post to Batman.
I wrestled when I was in high school, and one of the rituals was weighing in. To be able to compete, you have to be at or under the weight that you’re planning on wrestling at. They weighed us in on a balance scale, like you used to see in the doctor’s office. If the weights balanced, you passed. One of the junior varsity wrestlers (I’ll call him “Steve,” because his name is “Steve”) was just barely over on the weight, as close as I’d ever seen. One of the other wrestlers noticed that Steve was chewing gum (helps you spit, so you can lose weight that way, too).
“Hey, Steve, take out your gum.” Steve took out his gum and stepped back on the scale. With the gum still in his hand.
Some kind soul convinced Steve that perhaps the gum weighed just as much in his hand as in his mouth, and he threw it away . . . and made weight.
Numbers on a scale can’t be cheated. They’re objective. They’re real. And saying “The extra weight is really muscle” only works if you’re Vin Diesel. Or Chad Kerosene.
My weight is a fact, and as a fact, it’s the number one way to destroy the pretty little lies that my brain cooks up to tell me everything’s fine the way it is. John Wilder’s Brain: “You don’t want to be hungry. You don’t want to work hard. You like pie.” Mostly true. I rather enjoy working hard, but really do like pie.
Eliminating Variation
I’ve tried to pick a day and time to minimize fluctuations and also the opportunity for me to tell myself more lies. In past weight loss iterations, I’ve picked the low weight of the week, and just recorded that in my spreadsheet, but now, I’m all about first thing Friday morning.
I’ve noticed the following things make my weight vary. By vary, of course, I mean be higher:
- Carb Intake. I’ve noticed that the amount of carbohydrates that I eat impact how much I weigh. I’m certain that ties back directly to the amount of water my body can get rid of if I’m not trying to digest carbohydrates.
- Work Outs. If I’ve not been able to work out, again, there’s a lot of water that remains in the system.
- Recent Food Intake. Duh.
- Phase of the Moon. Sometimes you step up on the scale and . . . huh? How did that happen? This (for me) is a pleasant surprise about half the time.
And how are things going? Pretty well. I’ve (consciously) varied from diet and exercise during Spring Break (wooo, party!) and for Pugsley’s birthday party. That really points out the impact of carbs on my system. They have no real positive effect, and I find my energy, motivation, and even mood are better when I’ve been avoiding carbs. As part of a systems approach (more on that soon!) carbs are something I’m leaving out.
Every Thursday, I have the folks at the gym take a picture. I’m planning on having The Boy stitch them together to a time-lapse when I’m where I want to be. As it is, the improvement is noticeable. And it has to be.
I’m thinking that Mickey Rourke is sniffing around The Mrs.
But she’s sure to smell him first.
