dheimer's Journal, 29 August 2007

First-- I would say that your experiment was not simply a delay-- it was a success. First, you reduced the size of the post weekend increase-- your previous three were (4,4,3) and current is (2). Second, I think it was also instructive to see how the combination of diet and exercise requires a balance-- and in your case it seems like you are right on the cusp between a "strict" pattern which drives the losses, and a "comfortable" which drives the increases. I think the key to retaining your losses is shifting some of you behaviors in the "comfortable" mode. One thing that I have done is ramp up my level of consumption of yummy things that are low calorie. For me that means iced lattes are special treats that I look forward to every day. So, 2 shots of espresso + 2% milk and some ice = a yummy thing that makes me feel less like I am denying myself under a "strict" diet. Perhaps you can look systematically on what you do during the comfortable phase and find a couple of treats that you can introduce that are "yummy and low calorie" to replace "yummy and high calorie". I also like the carb smart fudge bars by Breyers. Same thing goes for exercise-- the key is to find an activity that consumes extra energy that is also fun that you can do in addition to the "official" exercise. Anyways-- keep it up. Oh, and I dropped your data into excel to make a smoothed moving average-- and despite the variance in recent weeks your on a consistnet downward trend that is faster than your late june to mid july period.