I have often welcomed those who have lost 100+ lbs (~ 50 kg , ~7 stone) to “the club” and joked that club meetings were on Thursdays. I recently suggested that we try out having a regular weekly thread to talk about issues that are particular to those who have lost 100+ lbs, those who are well on their way and those who are just at the beginning of a journey this big.
Welcome back to the Century Club! Each week I will provide a topic of the day that has been on my mind or inspired by previous posts. However you are free to talk about any topics you think might be relevant to current and prospective club members.
Previous topics: Fun - Health - Exercise - Denial - Headwinds - Streaks - Other People - Toolkit - Breaks - Support - Clothing - The Unexpected - Self-image - How do you end your journey? - What made it click? - Loose Skin
Today's topic: Schedules
Long term, significant weight loss is a project that will take 1-3 years under most circumstances. So how did you manage dates/milestones/schedules for your journey? Were there techniques that you found helpful? What was the right timescale for re-evaluation of your process and goals?
For me, with a long-range stretch goal of 105 lbs lost, I started with a very simple postulate. If I could manage to lose a moderate 1 lb/week on average I should be able to reach my destination in 24 months. Since I knew that at my goal weight of 170 lbs I could still maintain a 500 kcal deficit and be above 1500 kcal/day I assumed that I could keep up a steady pace from beginning to end of my journey.
In my line of professional work, we have an inside joke that 3 year projects are essentially infinite as they have a tendency to morph and change over time so that most are not completed as planned at least not with the original vision. So I really wanted this to be less than a "three-year-project" which I would never complete as planned.
I also knew that the two years would go by whether I was losing weight or not.
As with many of my work projects, sketching out the big trajectory of the project suggested that to achieve my goals I would need to lose somewhere between 10-15 lbs per 3 month "season". In previous weight loss attempts I had found 3 months to be a reasonable timescale to stick to new habits. So I used adopted that as my yardstick.
While I do not subscribe to any organized religion or substance abuse support group I do find a lot of value in the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
With that in mind, I tied my schedules to things I can immediately control (my actions) and not those things I only indirectly control (my weight or any other outcome of my actions) and committed to adopt "process until date" goals rather than "weight by date" goals. i.e. Not "I will lose 15 lbs by June 1st" but rather "For the next 3 months I will log all of my food intake , eat around 2100 kcal/day and try to walk for 30 minutes 3 times a week".
If my process was sound it should end up in a similar place. Following the process would result in ~15 lbs lost, so I could hopefully check that box too.
Perhaps coincidentally, but perhaps not, ~10-15 lbs is about 100 kcal in sedentary TDEE and is close to a traditional unit of measure UK "stones" which are 13 lbs. So it was a good timeframe to reassess my TDEE, measurements, fitness goals, emotional/mental state, wardrobe (do I have what I need for the season and does it fit?).
Each of these gates was also a potential off ramp. Do I still want to get to 170 lbs? Is there something else I need to be doing? Do I want/need an extended "break", ...
I completed my journey in 7 3 month segments instead of the originally planned for 8.
What about you Centurion? What role did schedules play in your journey? What techniques did you find useful to stick to your schedules and keep moving forward in your journey...
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