Today is Friday, July 25th, 2025, and it’s time for a Fit Check. The Fit is Good. The trends of losing weight and gaining in overall health and fitness continue, and I’m pretty happy with that.
I’ve hit most of my daily walks, and most of those included a run or otherwise increase in intensity. I’ve been back on my strength training schedule. I’ve been back on my calorie counting. I’ve… not… been back on my HIIT or calisthenic exercises… maybe I’ll get one in over the weekend. It would certainly be good for me if I did.
Okay, that’s out of the way. Last week was a lot more artistic and I very much enjoyed writing that bit, so I’m thinking I’ll stretch my writing on the blog from time to time. More so if I continue to like it. But not today.
Today I’ve been thinking about my weight loss goals, and this time actually focusing on the numbers. Like, I’m looking to slap some numbers on my spreadsheet. After the jump, the rest of today’s post is me walking through the making of those goals. It is very loose and barely edited, and I’m guessing it doesn’t make for a great read. But it’s something I feel like documenting in this space, and hey, maybe it’s worth a read if you’re in a similar spot. Otherwise, you ain’t missing much. Go ahead and skip, then catch me at the next one.
Above is a chart of my weight tracking for the past couple of years. That big spike might not be entirely accurate – I really did get that heavy, but in truth, I may very well have gotten even heavier. Over 300 pounds certainly isn’t the heaviest I’ve ever been. Somewhere back in the 2010’s, I maxed out the top end of my home scale. The scale I had at the time maxed at 350, so with that needle pinned, well, who knows how big I got. This latest spike in 2023-2024 was the big hospital visit, which had more to do with my dying insides than my meal habits, but that’s a story for another day. The chart also has a lot of empty spaces, which might remain empty, I’m not sure. I wasn’t keeping super tight records for big stretches of my recovery. Really, if you’re having trouble just walking, kinda who cares, right?
I’ve been trying to remember what my End of Summer weight goal was, and I’m no longer sure that I had set one. Some of my goals have been a bit squishy of late, which is fine. Squishy goals are better than no goals. However, I do like having a thing to strive for, and having a bunch of smaller things along the way is quite helpful as well. So let’s see about setting something long term and something short term, starting with the shorter end of things with that End of Summer Goal. But first, let’s think this through.
From what I’ve read regarding health and fitness, it is regularly stressed by physicians, nutritionists, and sports medicine practitioners that you shouldn’t lose more than two pounds per week. I have also come to an understanding that this is like a rolling averaging type thing – some weeks you won’t lose any, other weeks you’ll lose three pounds, you get it. Most of this knowledge is years old, and if I were to be more rigorous about things, I’d include some references here. As I would like the excuse to both spend time reading about fitness and also stretching my research muscles, I am very much interested in that project. However, the time I would need to commit to a project like that is currently taken up by more pressing matters, so that just ain’t gunna happen. But I haven’t recently read anything that seriously challenges that baseline understanding, so let’s stick with it – the upper limit of healthy weight loss is about two pounds per week.
I’ve definitely lost more than two pounds per week in years past, so if I manage to hit a higher pace, especially at my current weight, I’m not going to stress over it. I’ve also had a few weeks just this year where I’ve lost more than two, but I think that’s to do with a rubber-banding effect, so let’s not include that in our estimates. But thinking about that upper limit and trying to get a feel for my best and worst rates of weight loss is, I think, a good start. I don’t think it would be fair for me to expect a sustained, ongoing trend of losing two pounds every week. Sure would be nice, it would mean I could drop more than twenty pounds over the summer, but we’re more than halfway through that summer, and it hasn’t happened.
Summer is about three months – we’re gunna be pretty loosy-goosy with the math in this session, so let’s not get too hung up on details. Let’s call these “gross estimates”, shall we? So Summer is about three-ish months, depending on where you measure from. I mean, where even is the base of a season? Probably just below the volleyballs, right?
Around the start of June (which I know is not the actual start of Summer, again, please, just stay with me here) I was just above 260 lbs. A couple weeks in, I got down to 255, but that wasn’t a perfect drop – I gained a little back, lost a smidge, gained, and so on. I suspect I overshot a loss and the reality of my situation bounced me back up. This gave me a little worry that I wouldn’t be able to get over this hump, but I did. Mathing things out, if we assume about three months, about four weeks per month, and about 2 pounds per week, I could drop 24-ish pounds. There is no way in hell that is going to happen.
I think my current rate is, at best, one pound per week. Actually, no I don’t. I think it’s more like one pound per two weeks. Is that right? I don’t think that’s right either. Let’s step back a sec…
Okay, I want to get down to 210 pounds, or at least see how close to it I can get, before making any overall shifts in fitness goals. So let’s call that my End Goal. End Goal = 210 (for now). At the start of June, I was a little over 260. It is about the end of July, and I am 252. About eight weeks, about eight pounds. Likely another three to five in the next few weeks. For the overall, it’s about 42 pounds to go. If I lost two pounds per week, that would be 21 weeks. That’s somewhere in mid-December. Possible, but unlikely.
That measure of time, though – about eight weeks, about eight pounds – does reinforce the idea of about one pound per week. The end of August is about five weeks away. If I maintain roughly this rate, I could be down to 247. That would be nice. However, I do have at least one birthday party, a possible road trip, a possible school open house, and some other complicating factors that might derail me a bit. I don’t think they’ll throw me off by too much, but let’s not add additional undue stress to the pile here. I’ve got my current weight, my overall goal, and roughly my rate. That should be enough to scratch out these goals now.
Keeping with that logic, let’s say I do end August around 248. From there to the end of the year is like seventeen weeks. If it were at the 2lb/week max, that would be like 34 pounds. Hot damn. Still not gunna happen, but it’s a good reminder of what’s possible. If I really got down to it, I could basically be at that 210 goal by the end of the year, give or take.
Let’s take another quick step back here, because at some point earlier this year, I got up over 270. It was brief, and may have had more to do with water retention, but true nonetheless. I was back up around that weight as recently as the beginning of May. That’s like 16 pounds in 13 weeks, so a rate of like 1.2ish pounds per week? Okay, that’s another good data point check in, and more evidence to stick with that 1lb/w plan. Let’s stick with this.
Here’s a snapshot of an old spreadsheet I’ve been using to track this. I’ll probably gussy it up a smidge at some point. I really love a pretty spreadsheet, and all the modern spreadsheet tools just make it so easy. It’s also got a fair amount of silly math in it. What I’m calling a “Trend” is particularly egregious… yeah, maybe I should get to that Statistics class sooner than planned. Well whatever, we’ll fix things up at some future date, but not today.
Let’s shoot for 248 by August 29th. We’ll not fret if we’re still around 252 by then, we’ll just adjust both the expectations of when I reach my goals and also intensify my exercise plan to pick things up. If I manage to get heavier again, same but harder, I suppose. But let’s not expect to fail just yet, we’ll just anticipate it’s possible and also that it will be fixable if so. We’ll be quite happy if we make it under 250, even if it isn’t the 248 goal and even if it doesn’t completely stick.
Longer term, at this rate I could be in the 230s by October, which would also be quite nice. However, it really is hard to stick to plans the further things get into Winter. So let’s plan to be squarely in the 230s by the end of the year. Anything more is a bonus. We’ll do some little goal check-ins as we go, and adjust on the fly.
Yeah, this feels pretty good for now. Alright, that’s what’s up. Have a good one, y’all.