Weigh in, January 20, 2014

I had to move my weekly weigh in forward two days as I might be traveling this week and won't be able to use my home scale or be able to update A Taste For The Woods. So, two days early, I now weight 314, two pounds down from last week and eight down from my 'restart' high. I credit tracking calories with the change. Weight loss is like chess; the game is won and lost at the table.

I think I should explain why I chose Wednesday as the date for my weigh in. There are several reasons. One is that a Monday weigh in is such a weight loss cliche, I thought it best to avoid it for that reason alone. But there's also the fact that weekends are often home to celebrations involving food, or extreme exercise. Both a bike ride and a trip to the bar can throw off your weight on the Monday after. Waiting until Wednesday allows your body to release the excess water its holding from salt intake and muscle swelling.

And Mondays carry such baggage already - the start of the school or work week, for instance - that adding in the stress of a weigh in seems a bad idea. If I'm going to have a bad result, better I not spoil the entire week with it.

Incidentally, the idea of a later in the week weigh in isn't original to me. I first found the idea in The You Can Do It! Kid's Diet, a tome first published in 1985, and now out of print. I don't remember any other advice in the book, but the mid-week weigh in stuck with me all these years.