Wins and Losses

You could say that William “Braveheart” Wallace was a man with a mission. He had a clear vision, a strong sense of purpose, and a really nice kilt. He believed in something and fought to his death to achieve it.

I’d like to think that Charlie “Brave-stomach” Hills is not unlike him. I too have a clear goal and am taking all the necessary steps I can think of to rid my lands of the tyrannical English lose some weight. And, if the last twenty years are any indication, mine too will be a battle to the death.

Sometimes things go as planned. Every so often you map out a decisive battle and you actually pull it off (like the Battle of Stirling Bridge). And once in a while things go awry (like in the film version where the Battle of Stirling Bridge didn’t actually have a Stirling Bridge in it). But that’s okay. As long as the tally marks in the “win” column outnumber those in the “loss” column, you’re moving forward.

I had another one of those win/loss weeks and I will definitely say it was more win than loss. The win? Not a single uptick on the scale all week. Look at these seven days: 209, 208.5, 208, 207.5, 206.5, 206.5, 206.5. Every day was at or below the previous day.

In fact, as you can see from the chart, I hit my lowest point of this diet (which began on July 28). Not only that, this is better than my low point on my highly successful low glycemic bid a year ago. And not only that, this is the lowest I’ve been since around the middle of June 2006. So why would anyone have anything bad to say about this? Because I’m a pessimist that’s why. (To be fair, I’m actually a realist. But realism looks like pessimism to most people, so we’ll just go with that for clarity.)

No, what bothers me is four days in a row at the exact same weight. Four days where I did pretty well for myself—even avoiding the Saturday Bump of which I spoke last week. No, I’ve seen this before and this is what “bottoming out” looks like. Something snaps at this point and the slow reversal begins.

Hopefully next week, I’ll prove myself wrong. I’ll look back on this and laugh at my realism pessimism, and will have lost another pound or so. That would be good. In fact, if I could pull that off, I bet I’d start lookin’ pretty good in a kilt.