Temporarily Revisiting Last Year's Low

"A watched pot never boils." It seems the more diligently I record my daily weight, the harder it seems to lose  So more recently I skipped a series of weigh-ins, to find myself down 3-4 lbs. off my prior ongoing plateau. And then I weighed myself just before going to attend a family funeral in Massachusetts to find I had dropped back to last year's multi-year low, a similar recent drop. It had been a vicious bounce over multiple months, which ended up going up at one point over 20 pounds. And it wasn't like I was consciously overeating. I wouldn't say that that I was a spartan eater, but no radical changes in diet from when I was losing last year.

I drove up on a July Friday, roughly a 360 mile drive away up I-95 until Providence where I split off a loop that connects to Fall River (my destination), and I returned after a post-funeral luncheon on Saturday. I don't like to drink too much coffee or soda on my drives because of rest stops along the way. Friday night we had a family reunion at a favorite local restaurant (not that I had visited my folks' birth place all that often, especially since my military nuclear family stayed briefly with my grandfather while I was in sixth grade, maybe a half-dozen visits since then. I have a fondness for the cultural signature claim boils. (My granduncle, my grocer grandfather's partner/butcher, made the tastiest sausage links I've ever tasted, unlike any I've ever had since then.) A clam boil special was on the restaurant specials, and I think everyone (my mom, 6 siblings and myself) ordered it. Not as good as the ones I remember as a kid (my Dad was stationed at relatively nearby Otis on the cape from the time I was a Texas newborn to early primary school), but a rare treat. If I stayed longer, no doubt some lobster; when I've been at Shoprite lately, I've seen them promoting their live lobsters at roughly $7/lb., which is an amazing value. Oddly enough, for all the time I've spent in the Baltimore area since 2004, I haven't had the crabs.

I probably needed more refreshments (I did buy a couple of soft drinks on the way home) driving back on a hot Saturday afternoon through stop-and-go driving through Connecticut and NYC, but I was still stunned to find an interim weigh-in shortly after getting home to find myself at a point 2.5 pounds below the Friday weigh-in, but maybe as a result of a late dinner and lots of ice tea, I reverted back over the bottom.

I had a wound that opened while I was in Fall River, and I had to go to a local clinic to get some antibiotics prescribed. I ended up making two follow-up appointments (during a period of Sunday through Friday). It always annoys me how the weigh-ins at a doctor's office seem to be a few pounds over my morning weigh-ins: really, are clothes and shoes, or a modest breakfast/lunch really adding 4-6 lbs? But here's the real point: even though the doctor scale had me at 4 lbs. over my low. 2 days later on the same scale, my weight had gone up another 7 lbs! Maybe I should have been relieved that my Friday weigh-in was the same as my Tuesday one!

The important thing is consistency on weigh-ins of the same type. So that 7-lb. surge also seemed to transfer to my morning weigh-ins. And so while my weigh-ins were 3-4 pounds less than at the clinic, it seemed like for most of the last 3 weeks I plateaued at the higher rate,  roughly 7-8 lbs. over the low. It looks like I'm finally whooshing back down, to maybe 1.5 lbs. over that low in an informal weigh-in after a hot drive home from Sam's Club on a flex day off.  So I'm hopeful I'll be back at the low next week.

Some new favorites at Sam's Club. I love these Lipton's gallon ice-tea bags. It's like I run a cycle in my 5-cup coffeemaker, and fill the rest of my gallon pitcher with a small handful of stevia to sweeten. I'll usually stock up on KerryGold butter and cheeses. I wanted to replenish my sliced gouda slices I put on my grass-fed burgers; I don't know if it's discontinued, but I decided on baby swiss as an alternative. (The sliced cheeses aren't grass-fed, but I'll often use grass-fed with my omelettes.) I haven't seen cheap blueberries this summer, but currently you can buy a 2 lb. carton for just over $4. And I bought my first carton of fresh raspberries in a while, not cheap but reasonable. I've added watermelon to this summer's fruits. I like the fresh cilantro salsa; a current breakfast favorite is a 2-egg omelette with cheese, pepper strips and mushrooms, folded into a lower-carb tortilla and topped with fresh salsa. Buying a $5 rotisserie chicken is a no-brainer, as are sub $2/lb boneless chicken breasts. I'll sometimes add a bag of quinoa chips, and I'll usually stock up on nuts (almonds, walnuts, and pistachio nuts, mixed nut jars).

Around last-year's low, I bought, via the Internet,  black and grey dress jeans at a daring 4-inch smaller waist size than my regular pants and jeans (along with smaller belt sizes. I was too demoralized to even open my purchase bag after the monster bounce. I recently tried on the black jeans--a bit snug, especially when I sit, but wearable. I probably want to lose another 5-10 lbs.

Even my mom noticed that my suit coat that I bought I think around 2003 looked big on me, at my uncle's funeral. So at least I'm making progress, but I need to drop another 20 lbs to get into the weight range I had during the 1980's and 1990's.