I woke up a little anxious today. I’ve been obsessing about this whole weight loss thing. I’m counting calories, protein, carbs obsessively. I’m so hungry that I’m hangry (hungry + angry). I’m worrying about whether I’m eating too many calories even though I’ve stayed under 800 calories. Every half pound up or down on the scale is driving me crazy and I’m taking it personally.
So I decided to do what I do best, which is to look for trends in numbers and to use numbers to tell a story. There are three pictures below.
The most depressing is to look at my weight over 7 days. Oh, see the stalls! Oh woe is me! Clearly I’m failing! oh no! I cut 85% of my stomach out and I’m failing!
I take a deep breath and look at my 30-day trends. Hmm, maybe it’s okay? I still see those flat lines that look like stalls. I dunno. But hey at least I see some drops. It’s looking a bit better.
But I wonder what it looks like at 90 days? After all, I’m in this for the long haul and so perhaps I should have a longer-term perspective. So let’s look at a 90-day trend.
Whoa! What do you know! All I see are steady declines. I don’t see the stalls that much anymore. Rather what I see is a line that consistently goes down. Perhaps I’m doing okay after all. I now see a trendline that is reassuring, that is different from what I’ve achieved before, and that I believe will continue for a while.
Now to keep this perspective throughout the week ahead and not get frustrated.
What does your trend line look like?
My Last Diet 
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