Initial Weight Loss...and the Weight Loss Plateau

In last week's rather long post, I left you with me having been off of cigarettes for a couple of months while simultaneously seeing my weight go back up into the 270s, which really wasn't that far above the "standard weight" with which I had lived for quite some time.

But right around New Year's Day, I made the steadfast decision to go back on the South Beach Diet with a total commitment to putting into practice the weight loss methods that had worked (temporarily) some eight or nine years earlier. Not wanting to do the resolution thing, though, I decided to wait a week before getting on the weight loss train.

So on January 7, 2012, I stood on the scale and took the weight measurement (my first "official" weigh in), and I wasn't very proud of the reading: 275.6 pounds! Really!?! Oh no! Not Again! But after that initial shock, I put myself on a mission to "lose weight" and get down to "around 200" again, which (by the way) is still in the "overweight" category for someone of my height and build.

At the outset, I was pretty diligent with the diet (sorry, lifestyle change) and made a commitment to have regularly-scheduled weekly "official" weigh ins. Also, the food was okay because after the first two weeks, South Beach does allow for a decent variety of food while eliminating "bad carbs" (white pasta and bread, some high-starch fruits and veggies, etc.) in exchange for "good carbs" (whole wheat pasta and bread, some fruits and veggies, etc.). That said, though, the biggest problem with my implementation of any diet (sorry, lifestyle change) for the preceding decade was that I didn't have an exercise program to go along with the eating adjustments. Oh, I went to the driving range and hit a lot of golf balls, I got out and played golf every couple of weeks, and I did my own yard work; but at the end of the day, I really wasn't undertaking any cardiovascular activity...and in the past, I know this is why I didn't keep the weight off...ever!

So looking at my stats for the first six months, here's what my weight loss looked like...

Jan 7 - 275.6 Pounds
Feb 4 - 261.0 Pounds  (Total Loss - 14.6 Pounds)
Mar 10 - 257.7 Pounds  (Total Loss - 17.9 Pounds)
Apr 7 - 251.8 Pounds  (Total Loss - 23.8 Pounds)
May 12 - 248.5 Pounds  (Total Loss - 27.1 Pounds)
June 9 - 246.9 Pounds  (Total Loss - 28.7 Pounds)
July - No Weight Recorded...WHAT???

See what was happening here? I experienced the typical huge weight loss that new dieters experience ("Woo Hoo!" "14 pounds in a month!" "Yes!"), and then things began to "normalize" because my body got over the shock of the initial change. Then I settled in to that "okay...one pound a week" mindset (which is a healthy weight to lose every week). But after maintaining that through May, I guess I started to rebel and to push the South Beach envelope.

I hit the plateau. Yes, I had lost just under thirty pounds, and that was nothing to sneeze at; but the motivation and excitement of those first couple of months began to dwindle just a few months later, and that becomes obvious when you look at the numbers and see that I lost just a pound and a half between May and June...and then decided to avoid my "official" weigh ins during the entire month of July.

The truth is that I stood on the bathroom scale during the weeks, and I knew I wasn't gaining ground. Thus, I decided not to weigh in "officially" on the weekend. I had officially stepped on the plateau and was in danger of moving back in the wrong direction.

But, although seemingly insignificant at the time, in late June, a very life-changing event unfolded when I purchased the following two items down at the Saint Augustine outlet stores...

We'll talk more about these next time. Until then, enjoy your journey...