Four pounds in a week sounds pretty rockin’, but I’m thinking I must have broken a mini-plateau, because last week I was up a pound, wiping out the loss from the week before. Still, I officially weighed in under 250! Woo-hoo! My 250s have been the hardest 10 pounds of this process to get through so far. I’m not necessarilly expecting my 240s to be any easier, but one can always dream.

What’s fun is to look down at my cairn terrier who weighs around 14 pounds, and say “I’ve lost more than two of you.”

I wasn’t significantly better about my exercise level this week… possibly worse because the weather was gloomy. I was better about my food choices. Even when I was a little carb-heavy, it was generally minor: a bison burger on a whole-wheat bun with a handfull of french fries, some chips and guacamole with a fajita salad, some whole wheat pasta in a home-made pork chow mein with a soy-honey-ginger sauce.

One thing I did was cut back on my diet cola consumption a bit when I go out to restaurants. For example, when we go to “the peanut restaurant” (my son’s favorite restaurant that has a “kids eat free” special every Tuesday), I’ve taken to ordering water instead of soda. It’s not because I’m trying to be healthier, though. It’s because they charge $2.49 for a soda. Sure it comes with free refills, but with tax and tip that’s closing in on $3.15… to have soda… with just one meal. So that’s probably 100 mg less sodium, less aspartame, less artificial flavor, less caffeine… all because I’ve been feeling cheap.

I continued using my low-carb flatbread quesadillas as my breakfast crutch. My local Costco and my local Safeway carry low-carb flatbreads from Flat Out. Costco has the 8-gram ones with flax. Safeway has the 6-gram ones. There’s not a huge difference in flavor between the 6-grammers and 8-grammers, though the 8 grammers feel a little more whole-grain and less gummy, plus because I buy them at Costco, they’re about 30% cheaper. I cook them in a large covered skillet with a couple ounces of cheese and a little lunch meat (usually some turkey). It’s really predictable, but it works for me.

And that’s about it. I’m really happy about dropping 4 pounds this week, but I’m not expecting that pace to continue. As I’ve said before, this is about making healthier choices and building a food lifestyle I can maintain for the rest of my life, rather than being on a diet. I’ve found that when I consider a restrictive, temporary diet, I want to lose weight as fast as possible, not just because I want it off, but because slower weight loss means punishing myself with the diet longer. With the mindset that I’m not on a diet, but living healthier, I know I’m going to keep eating this way, even when I reach my goal weight. When I keep that in mind, I still want to reach my goal weight sooner rather than later, but the urgency to “finish” the diet is gone and I’m happy to lose a pound or two a week.

See ya next week.

Lots of sites are running stories about the Baylor study that suggested that drinking a glass of low sodium vegetable juice promoted weight loss in the subjects of a study.

I’m sure the sales of V8 have spiked in the last couple of weeks. But let’s dissect this…

1: The study was sponsored by Campbell’s, makers of V8 vegetable juice.

2: Campbell’s has been doing most of the media campaign to promote the study results.

3: Study participants who drank vegetable juice as part of a calorie-controlled diet for lowering blood pressure lost an average of just 4 pounds during a 12 week study, 3 pounds more than the people who didn’t drink V8 juice. Anyone who has dieted knows it’s possible for people to fluctuate nearly that much in a week (it’s less than 1.5 liters of water) and the high potassium levels in vegetable juice help you better regulate your bodily fluid levels, so a portion of that could merely be water weight from better potassium levels.

4: When I have contracted at Microsoft, they offer free V8 juice along with the free sodas. I’d drink 2-3 six-ounce cans of V8 juice a day when I’d be on contract there, but I’d still gain weight. I can probably attribute the weight gain to overall bad eating habits during those periods, but I also drank V8 five days a week during those periods too.

A problem with studies like this is that they try to make insignificant results sound significant. Three pounds over twelve weeks needs a bigger study with stricter controls and more stringent tests to prove that it’s 3 pounds of actual fat loss, not just water weight. It also needs to be studied in the context of a diet where people are trying to lose a pound a week or more, not where the “control” group’s weight loss rate averages out to four pounds a YEAR and the test group’s weight loss rate averages out to 17 pounds a YEAR.

Furthermore, unless everyone on the diet had to eat every morsel on their plate, there’s also the factor of all the diets where you drink a glass of liquid before a meal to fill up your stomach and help control your appetite. If the study group was drinking their V8 juice before a meal and then maybe not finishing the whole thing, while the control group didn’t drink a similar amount of water at the same time, that could skew results as well.

Remember when Snackwells came out? The public went nuts over fat-free chocolate cookies. People sang their praises and gained weight because they thought fat-free meant they could eat more cookies. Some people thought they could just eat a whole bag. It took people a while to realize they were still cookies, they still had lots of sugar, and they were still fattening.

My problem with this study is that people might think that vegetable juice is a magic bullet, much like “fat free” once was. IF there is a significant effect to be had from drinking vegetable juice, it’s as part of a low-calorie diet. You cannot substitute a V8 for good food choices, portion control, or exercise. If you’re doing all those things, then according to this study, you might lose another 1/4 pound a week. That could mean the difference between 52 pounds and 65 pounds over the course of a year. But you might get the same effects if you drink a glass of water before dinner or take a potassium supplement.

My view is that if you like V8 and would want to drink it anyway, go for it. But if you’ve never been a big fan, don’t go rushing out and buying a case at Costco. The study results just aren’t conclusive enough, in my opinion, to justify taking action based on a press release from Campbell’s about a study they sponsored.

Realized I forgot to post my weekly weigh-in last week. I weighed in at 252, a 1-pound loss, last week, but before I got a chance to post an update, I got some very bad news and my mind went elsewhere. I can’t discuss the details except to say none of my loved ones were hurt, there’s no police involvement, and neither I or anyone I know is in immediate danger, but it’s still very stressful, particularly because the situation is one where I’m not currently able to do anything proactive about it.

My preoccupation with it during the early part of the week, a little bit of comfort eating, and just a generally higher stress level is probably the reason why I went up a pound. I wasn’t particularly bad this past week, just far from being particularly good. I didn’t get much exercise and made more convenience-driven food choices. I actually fluctuated up to 254.5 mid-week, but I gradually came to terms with the injustice and helplessness of my situation, started making better food choices, and gave more thought to portions instead of eating on autopilot. So I’m back down to 253 by this morning, but up a pound for the week.

I’m not so much upset about having a net wash for two weeks as I am that I let last Monday’s bad news throw me like it did. But I’m getting my head back on straight and getting this back on track. If I let this bad news cause me to go into a spiral of stress and weight gain, then I lose before the matter is ever resolved. As the old saying goes, “living well is the best revenge.” The best way I can deal with this is to refocus on what’s important.

See y’all next week, hopefully with a better number.

Did some quick calculations in my head today while taking a shower. There are two main milestone dates that I’d like to have reached my goal by, either my birthday in October or the 1-year anniversary date of the diet.

I have 70.5 pounds to go and my birthday is 27 weeks away, meaning I’d have to average 2.6′ish pounds a week. That’s a pretty rapid clip and while my current average is 2.68, and I dropped 3 last week, sustaining a loss rate like that is going to be pretty difficult. Furthermore, to keep up that pace, I’d probably have to do things I can’t (or won’t) keep up long term, and one of the points of this whole adventure is to build new good habits that will last after I’ve reached my goal weight.

The 1-year anniversary, on the other hand, is 41 weeks away. I calculated 1.75 pounds a week. The calculator’s coming up with a hair under 1.72. That’s a lot more possible, although even that may be a bit aggressive. A good, healthy goal, is 1-2 pounds a week. It’s in that range, but it’s near the upper end. There may be weeks I exceed it and weeks I don’t meet it. It’s possible I could average it. If I do average it, that will put me at 206 by my birthday, which will be my lowest weight since I tried Fen-Phen in early 1997 and lost 22 pounds before going off it due to safety concerns. That would be my lightest in 12.5 years.

When I finally reach 197, it will mark the weight I got down to when I tried Nutrisystem after my 21st birthday (going from 221 to 197 before derailing). So the moment I hit 196, probably sometime in December, it will be the lightest I’ve been in around 20 years. Wow.

Well, even with my belt on the last hole, my pants were falling down, so I had to switch to a belt I’d been wearing the last time I was in my 260s for any extended period of time (before I quit smoking and gradually gained 20 pounds).

This belt had always been a little tight and I never wore it deeper than the first hole, but it worked. Now I’m wearing it on the 2nd hole and have three more to go before I have to buy a new belt.

Depending on the cut, my 44-inch-waist pants are ranging from loose (WalMart “Faded Glory” brand) to falling off (Old Navy). I found a pair of 42-inch-waist Lee jeans in my closet, which are a smidge tight, but my “goal pants” (a pair of Calvin Klein casual pants) fit great in the waist and can even be taken off and put on while buttoned and zipped. A pair of Ralph Lauren relaxed fit cargo pants with a 40-inch waist, which I’ve had pretty much since my waist crested the 40-inch mark around 11 years ago, are only a little bit snug in the waist, but not uncomfortably so.

It just goes to show how different designs/cuts can make pants fit so much differently.

Of course, I have pants issues. I’ve got a long torso and relatively short legs, so many pants that “fit” tend to be too short in the crotch. So when I stupidly buy pants that won’t be too long at the ankle, they tend to be too short in the crotch, so the Calvins and the Lee Jeans are both bunching in the crotch, but the 40-inch Ralph Lauren cargos (which have a 2-inch longer leg and really are “relaxed” fit) are going to be nice and wearable in a couple of weeks. I could also probably find some 40-inch-waist Old Navy jeans that will fit then too. And hopefully those pants will carry me until the next milestone: 36-inch-waist-pants.