One Year of Progress

 Here's what I looked like a year ago, end of July 2020. I weighed 240 pounds, the most I've ever been.

Here's a shot from 2018 in New Orleans. For most the last four years, I was about 230. 

- - -

A year later and I now weigh 179. This what I look like after losing 61 pounds.

At 5'8.5", I've gone from a BMI of 36 to a BMI of 26.8.

The threshold of a normal weight is a BMI of 24.9. For my height, that is 166. If I reach 165, that will be 75 pounds lost. So yeah, I think 166-165 is a reasonable goal weight. 

Here's the weight loss by month:

August 2020:         12

September 2020:    7

October 2020:        8

November 2020:    3

December 2020:    0

January 2021:        7

February 2021:      5

March 2021:          4

April 2021:            3

May 2021:             5

June 2021:             3

July 2021:             4

(In December I actually lost 5, then gained them back at Christmas, but then they quickly came off again. It's probably more accurate to say I lost 3 in December and then 4 in January. Not that anyone cares.)

So that's 12 months in a row of good months. I'd previously had a 4-month healthy stretch in 2007 (where I lost 40 pounds) and a 5-month stretch in 2013 (where I lost 30 pounds). 

The last time I was in the 170s was back in August-September 2013. It didn't last long. Here's my post-college weight history in one chart:

(you can click to expand)

A lot of wild things in this chart. First that I was actually in the 170s or less from April 2007 through April 2011, which is when Mrs. Hoagie Central got pregnant. 

In fact, you can see two big increases in 2011 and 2013 during both pregnancies. Sympathy weight is a real thing. In 2013, I crossed 200 for the first time and used that motivation to turn into a successful weight loss down to the 170s. 

After that you can see a general trend of weight loss, followed by a sharp gain where I went from slightly under 200 to 230 upon moving to KC. In 2018, I had a decent weight loss progress derailed by getting fired. Then in early 2020, I lost 19 pounds, only to gain it back once the pandemic started. 

Since I moved to KC alone, there were 7 distinct times where I tried to lose weight. If you count the period from 2007-2016, there's another 8 distinct times. That's 15 times in 15 years. Which makes the point that I've never been able to maintain. Not many horizontal lines on this chart. Hoping that all the lessons I've learned this year stick, and I'll be adding a horizontal line in the 160s/170s. 

If I can lose 5 more and get down to 174, it will be the first time I've been at that weight since 2010 when I lived in Oak Park, before we had children. That's wild.  

Anyways, here's a side by side, what one year of progress looks like in one image: