Day 39

My friend Terri asked what percentage of the way I am to my goal. Since everyone will know my starting weight as of this Thursday when the show airs, I guess there's no reason to be coy about it any more. On the show I weighed in at 381. As of yesterday morning I was at 350. (Why do I feel that I need to add the caveat that these weights were on two different scales, so I don't know if it's truly comparing apples to apples?) So, the question is what is my goal? By the weight charts, I'd have to get down to about 174 to be out of the "obese" category. In my mind if I could get down to 200 pounds, I'd be ecstatic. (That would put me at a BMI of 35, still in the "obese" level.) So, by that, I want to lose 181 pounds total (to get to 200). My 31 pounds is 17% of the way to that goal.

This is actually a good way of looking at things, thanks, Terri. 17% seems like a more meaningful number than 31 pounds compared to 181 pounds. The other thing that one of my colleagues suggested is buying five pound bags of flour and stacking them in my office to visually show how much weight I've lost. I could see this being a powerful visual, at least over time (right now, six bags of flour might not look all that impressive!) Also, another four pounds and I will have lost the equivalent of my son's weight - that's also powerful to me (I "lost" my daughter at 25 pounds!)