Well, that was a rough couple of days, what with all that pizza and ice cream sitting in our fridge and freezer. After a big drop the first few days of the week, I plateaued and even rebounded a little bit.

I'm down one-and-a-half pounds for the week, but that still puts me behind pace for pound number fifteen. I now have seven days to drop three and a half pounds. That's tough. In all likelihood, I'm going to extend my program out about another week. I still plan to hit fifteen pounds.

For this week, I'll see how I do the next few days. I'm pretty hungry right now, but maybe I'll power through on an all toast diet for a few days. If I do well to start off, then I may have enough motivation to finish the fifteenth week strong.

Well, there's no way to spin this one. After twelve straight weeks of successes, I finally hit a failure point. Week thirteen was the first week in which I did not make the progress I needed. I basically stayed even from last week.

I can't attribute this to any kind of social obligations (like the vacation week or the two trips to Vegas). I just couldn't get myself to buckle down as I needed.

All-in-all, breaking even isn't bad. That will be the plan every week once I hit my goal weight. But for now, I have some catching up to do. If I want to hit my fifteen-in-fifteen goal, then I have to basically sprint the rest of the way. I have to lose four pounds in the next two weeks. It's definitely doable. It's definitely difficult.

I'm going to take it day by day. It won't be the end of the world if it takes an extra week for pound number fifteen, but it won't make as good a headline.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 13
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Current     : -10.2 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.78 lbs / wk
Projected   : 18-Nov
Original    : 21-Oct

I went from the ten-pound range into the eleven pound range, a success for the week. I was hoping for more though. With one day left to go (yesterday), I was a quarter of a pound away from breaking through into the next tier. But even though I ate minimally it still wasn't enough to offset a bounce back weight gain. (I am up almost half a pound today from yesterday.)

Anyway, the barn door is in sight, I'm in the home stretch. With three weeks left in the program, I am four-and-one half pounds away from my goal. That means this is probably going down to the wire. I can't do a sprint this week, since I have two social meals planned. So I need to work on just a normal one-pound drop.

Week fourteen is looking more like a sprint week again.

Family Alert — Family is coming into town the second half of week fifteen. That means that week fourteen really is the big one.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 12
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Current     : -10.4 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.87 lbs / wk
Projected   : 04-Nov
Original    : 21-Oct

I dropped a little over a pound this week. If I do the same thing the next four weeks, that means that I will be a half-pound tardy at the end of the fifteenth week. This was a decent week, especially since I wasn't trying very hard. But it's still a little disappointing because I had a chance the last two days to gain more ground, but it just didn't happen.

If I don't move safely ahead of pace by the end of this week, then I'll schedule a sprint for next week or the week after, depending on scheduled events. This week, it looks like I have a big dinner planned for Monday night, then nothing major after that.

Maybe if I don't do too much damage by Tuesday morning, I'll just push ahead hard this week as well.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 11
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Current     : -9.6 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.87 lbs / wk
Projected   : 04-Nov
Original    : 21-Oct

It's week ten, and I've dropped a little less than nine pounds. That puts me a week behind schedule. The tardiness is the result of a trip to Vegas eating at multiple good restaurants, of course. The actual damage done was much worse than just one pound, but last week's sprint brought me back to within striking range of my fifteen pounds in fifteen weeks goal.

So now, I have five weeks remaining with six pounds to drop. As the past ten weeks have shown, this is completely doable even with two trips to Vegas:

I don't think I have any huge party plans coming up for the next several weeks, so I should just make steady progress the rest of the way. If I find myself needing an extra push around week twelve or thirteen, I'll schedule a sprint for week fourteen to get myself over the top.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 10
=======
Current     : -8.4 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.84 lbs / wk
Projected   : 04-Nov
Original    : 21-Oct

Well, that was rough.

Rough, but fun. The Vegas trip was a doozy, as far as eating was concerned. That's basically all we did. Traveling there with a kid makes for a much different trip. The time was mostly spent lingering over meals with family.

After we got back home, I rebounded a little bit, as expected. Then, we hosted a party at home that had me throw all caution out the door. That too was fun.

But now, it's time to pay the piper. After eight straight weeks of weight loss, I gave back almost half of it in a few days. I guess it would have been unreasonable to expect the streak to keep going unabated. Anyway, here we are. Strictly speaking, I need to lose about five pounds by next Sunday. I'm really not sure if that's possible, but I'll have to try. On the other hand, my seven-day-average weight is about two pounds less than where I am now. So, that would mean only dropping three pounds below the expected mean. That would be doable.

I think this will have to be another sprint week. I'll do a weekly plan tomorrow to see if it's possible based on my calendar.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 9
======
Current     : -7.6 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.42 lbs / wk
Projected   : 10-Mar-2019 (ouch!)
Original    : 21-Oct

After the big two-pound drop last week, I took it a little easy this past week. We went out for a birthday dinner on Monday, and I scarfed down five slices of that pizza plus a bunch of appetizers. The day after, I had a couple of slices of cold pizza.

After that, I slowed it down a little bit. There wasn't really much more to distract me into eating as I stayed busy with getting ready for the daughter's first day of school and a family vaction week (this week).

End result - another three-quarters of a pound lost. This is the longest I've ever been on this program. At this point, I think I could just keep cruising along, no problem. I need to stay on focus though — we are planning another short trip to Vegas.

I'll have to decide whether to pre-drop some weight (today) or just cram it in over the weekend. On second thought, we have a party planned here at home on Saturday. So that might make it tough. We'll see how it goes. I may have to do another sprint next week.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 8
======
Current     : -7.6 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.95 lbs / wk
Projected   : 21-Oct
Original    : 21-Oct

Pleasant surprise this morning — I lost over two pounds for the week. On the last day, I was so tired from the previous night out that I was too tired to eat much. I was also able to go to bed pretty early, thus avoiding any late evening meals.

Anyway, that puts me right back exactly on pace: seven pounds in seven weeks. I'm really happy right now. Halfway through the program and I'm on track. I'm already at the lowest I've been in about seven years. I'm going to feel free to eat whatever today; tomorrow, we have a family dinner out planned. After that, I'll be back shooting for another pound this week coming up.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 7
======
Current     : -7.0 lbs
Weekly Rate : -1.0 lbs / wk
Projected   : 21-Oct
Original    : 21-Oct

Well, I lost a quarter of a pound! (That's about a hundred grams, to those of you on the metric system.) That doesn't sound too impressive, until you consider that I was on vacation out of town for the second half of the week. I'll book this one as a success too.

We were on what was, essentially, a type of packaged vacation. (It was actually on a college campus.) Although everything else was great, the food was its big weakness. The food was dorm food from the college cafeteria. So we ended up going out to eat a couple of times (see chart below). But because the cafeteria was much more easily accessible, I ended up eating very little for several meals. Not great for a vacation, but awesome when you're trying to lose weight.

Now, even though I consider the past week a success, I still have work to do. This week, I need to shoot for a couple of pounds in order to make up for lost progress the last two weeks. I think the calendar is clear. And if we get any surprise dinners, then I'm going to have to bite the bullet and either skip it or eat a very small salad.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 6
======
Current     : -4.6 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.77 lbs / wk
Projected   : 11-Nov
Original    : 21-Oct

It looks like I hit that plateau I mentioned back in week three, sort of. This week, I “only” lost half a pound. Despite not technically being on pace, I still consider the week a success because I dropped any weight at all.

Analysis

First of all, the problem was not the Wagyu. The problem, from a weight-loss perspective, was that we had multiple unplanned social gatherings take place this week.

Because I had front-loaded my eating and planned to do the weight-dropping in the latter part of the week, the surprises made it a little hard to execute. If I had done as I did during the Vegas week and dropped the weight early, then I probably would have been able to get the full pound in as planned. Okay, so maybe it was the Wagyu.

Regardless, balance is important. And I choose to balance my physical health with my social health. So every once in a while, I'll sacrifice my weight loss goals in order to spend some quality time with friends or family. Even so, I still managed to book a loss for the week.

Although my projected end date is now two weeks out, I still expect to hit my original target date. I expect the pace to vary as the months go by. Sometimes, I'll come out ahead as I did in week one. Other times, I'll be a little behind like today. In the long run (ten more weeks), it will even out.

Metrics:

Targeting a fifteen pound loss at one pound per week:

Week 5
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Current     : -4.4 lbs
Weekly Rate : -0.88 lbs / wk
Projected   : 04-Nov
Original    : 21-Oct