Doing the Math

I have a confession to make: I've gained 30 pounds in the past year. It's not something I'm proud of, and I don't have any good excuses. Yes, life has been stressful, but I've made the decision not to pay attention to what I eat, and now I'm paying the price. (In this case literally, since I've had to buy some larger clothes.) The time has come to stop being mad at myself and to instead channel that anger into a constructive solution.

I like numbers, so I'm choosing to look at this as a math problem. I want to lose a total of 35 pounds. I also know that for me, going on a strict diet and losing the weight quickly won't work this time. I've done that before, and I don't have the stamina to do it again. And I also want to look at this as an opportunity to change my lifestyle instead of going on a diet, stopping, gaining weight; rinse and repeat. So my strategy is to lose 5 pounds a month over 7 months, so that by August 1, I'll be at my goal.

Here's where the math comes in: 1 pound equals 3500 calories; 5 pounds equals 17,500 calories. That's how many calories I need to cut each month in order to lose the weight. Sounds like a lot all at once. But if I want to lose 5 pounds by February 1, that works out to a deficit of about 650 calories a day. That's a lot more manageable. Plus, that deficit will come from a combination of cutting calories and increasing exercise. So if I continue to walk or do some other form of exercise every day, in combination with watching what I eat, I think I can get there.

So that's the challenge for me. I'll check in each month with a report to see if it's working, or if I need to tweak the plan. My hope is that with gradual weight loss and incremental changes to my eating plan, I can come up with a way of eating that will work for the long term, so that once I lose the weight, I can keep it off. I'll let you know how it goes.