The Importance of Tracking Your Progress
Pragmatic Laziness: How One Graph Beats Expert Advice
In 2008, a 258-pound Phil Libin decided to experiment with laziness.
He wanted to lose weight. This is common. As is also common, he wasn’t particularly keen on diet or exercise. He’d tried both on and on for years. The intermittent four to eight-week programs helped him drop pounds—and then his other behaviours helped him gain them back even faster.
He began to suspect there might be an easier way: doing nothing
Phil had a simple method in mind: “I wanted to see what effect being precisely aware of my weight would have on my weight.”
Phil lost 28 pounds in six months without making the slightest attempt to change his behaviour.
- Tim Ferris: The Four Hour Body.
Case in point that my bi-weekly weigh-ins, whilst appearing way too intricate and detailed, are needed to really benefit from any change in lifestyle. I will in fact be carrying out these measurements everyday - the progress you see in every two weeks is because I see there to be no real benefit for putting measurements up everyday online. I’ve lost time that could be attending something more worthwhile, while you poor readers (if not already doing so reading this now) are wasting what hours your eyes could be spending on something much entertaining on the Internet.
Many folks say to ignore the scales and measurements for an entire week before seeing their numbers again. My mother, who once gave Weight Watchers a try for a couple of months, hated not knowing how her diet was working until her next weekly weigh-in, by which point meant it was too late to do anything about it.
While the numbers day-to-day may look unconvincing, be patient and stick with it. In my previous bout of weight loss I was frustrated looking at such a slim decrease in weight, but persevered long enough to see the progress overall at the final stage.
Diet and Exercise
As many university undergraduates that live away from home, my weight has seen a great change from when I started in September 2009 to where I am right now. As I recall when I measured and weighed myself before university (knowing that things would change for better or worse) I was just barely over 6 feet tall and weighed in at around 12 and a half stone (probably just under). Summer 2010 saw the low of my life in this regard weighing in at just over a whopping 14 stone.
The fact is copious amounts of alcohol my body just wasn’t used to and my lack of ability and energy to learn to cook (thus eating a lot of fast food) saw the inevitable happen. There were no excuses, it took a toll on me before I even knew it was a problem.
Since then I have lost a stone and a half (back to my original weight) and put on 3 or 4 more pounds in the recent weeks (due to workload and a recent bout of nights out).
I’ve never felt more happier with myself knowing that I can lose the weight when I felt it right to. It wasn’t as if I completely changed my life, stopped drinking and stopped with the fast food - I still do and adore those things. But when I dont, I make sure to exercise at the gym at least two days a week for an hour or so and to eat healthy afterwards. Sometimes I would do more than this, sometimes less. I never took it seriously or in any sort of regimented way until this point.
But I’ve decided as of tomorrow a true diet and exercise plan will be now put into action. It starts with substituting any lunchtime meal with a protein shake as well as taking one after any exercise I do. The theory behind this is to shed whatever fat I can in the easiest way possible and keep my consumption of it down to minimum and to help repair muscles after any weights at the gym. Any fast food or nights out MUST be followed by a gym session the day after to make sure I do not absorb any more fat than I already have to. Four gym sessions are now the target for each week with at least 25 minutes of cardio.
I just want to see how well I can do it, and how far the results can go. The gym has definitely produced more definition and size in my muscles (especially arms and chest).
So the current size and weight is:
- Height: 6 foot, 2 Inches (I don’t know when I’ll stop growing. Hopefully before I can’t fit in any car)
- Weight: 12 stone, 10 pounds
I will let you know of the results on a bi-weekly basis. Weight-loss is not a particular necessity (bar maybe the couple of pounds I’ve put on in the recent months) as I want to add to my muscle mass. But, I do expect to see my weight drop for the first couple of weigh ins.
