2014: The Year I Spent Floundering On The Weight Loss Journey (Or Why Measuring and Photos Are Poor Substitutes For Weighing)

In March 2014, when I had my “I’ve had enough moment,” I made a decision that I was going to start holding myself accountable for my weight. First, I would take weekly progress photos of myself. Since it was being tagged in Facebook photos that had brought on the “I’ve had enough moment,” I figured taking photos was a way to guard myself against having a unpleasant surprise like that in the future.

The second thing I did to try to hold myself accountable was to measure myself with a measuring tape. I set up a Google form that would send my responses to a Google spreadsheet. I set up a Google calendar event that recurred weekly that had a link to the Google form. Each week I grabbed my phone, snapped the “progress photos”, measured 10 different parts of my body, and submitted the form.

There were problems with my chosen methods. First of all, the progress photos weren’t very helpful in helping me to see if I was actually making progress. It was hard to keep the exact same angle from week to week. Plus, even when I did, it was difficult to say whether I was gaining, losing, or maintaining.

The tape measuring was also not helpful. Each week, desperate to have a victory, I’d pull the tape a little tighter, and a little tighter. Then eventually I’d suck in a little. The next week I’d suck in the same amount, and then pull the tape a little tighter. I knew I was lying to myself. If anything, it made the whole thing worse. But I was just too scared to get on the scale.

I have no idea if I lost any weight in 2014. It’s possible those two things helped me lose some weight. I have no idea what I weighed in that photo of me on the far left. The one in the middle was taken just before I finally weighed myself in February 2015, so I was 222 at that point.

When I started weighing myself daily, the journey became easier. I still screwed up a lot. In 2015, I was consistently weighing, but I was being very impatient. After floundering in 2014, I wanted to make up for lost time, but in reality I just kept quitting a lot and changing what I was doing almost constantly.

In 2016, I finally got consistent with my simple plan:

• Intermittent fasting 6 days a week eating whatever I want at my meals.
• Coffee with half and half whenever I want it in the fasting window.
• Walk 6 miles a day.
• Cheat day on Sunday.
• Weigh daily.

The photo to the far right is me after the end of 2016, when I got down to my first goal weight (158) and started maintaining.

The scale has been the best accountability partner. He’s reliable and always tells me the truth, even when I don’t want to see it. I only wish I had started weighing in 2014. It might have saved me some time.