Trends

I realized something yesterday that I thought I should share.

The last time I weighed myself before I really started gaining weight in Cairo was in February 2005 (about 6 months into my stay) and I was in good shape but wasn't paying any particular attention to fitness or diet, so let's call that weight X -- my healthy baseline.

Over the next 15 months, I gained 20 lbs. -- it may have been more, at points, since that X+20 data point came right after I got back from India in May 2006, and I suspect I lost a little weight I was there just from all the sweating alone. But lets say 20 lbs in 15 months, or about 1.33 lbs/month.

In November 2006, 6 months later (and 21 months after I was last measured at baseline X) I had gained a total of 34 lbs -- 14 lbs. of that in approx. six months. That means my weight gain accelerated to nearly 2.5 lbs/month.

This was clearly a really bad trend.

My current weight is X+29, and it has been within a few pounds of this since April. This means that for the last seven (almost eight) months, my trend has been totally flat (-0.625 lbs/month).

I have sometimes thought "well I didn't lose the weight, yet," but what I didn't realize until yesterday, and which is really important, is that I have stopped gaining weight.

When you're talking about an upward trend that, by the end, was seeing me gain almost 2.5 lbs per month (!), to lose five pounds and stay steady over almost eight months is actually a really good change. :)

VC