Well, it’s not really a showdown at all. It’s a weekly record of our weight which is recorded on a graph every Sunday morning. Our weight being that of my spouse W and myself.
It all started in September 2007 when the CT branch of our family started a weight loss competition to see who could lose the most weight before 1st December. The competition was fair in that total loss was measured as a % of starting weight!
What was so special about 1st December? Well, that was the day the CT family met the JBH branch at JHB International and all 10 of us flew off to Ile Maurice! Headed for 8 days at Le Meridien Ile Maurice resort to be exact. (If anyone is considering Mauritius for a holiday, we can certainly recommend Le Meridien.) What a magic holiday we all had and it is fitting that the sponsor of the costly junket was also the winner of the weight loss competition! We each contributed R100 to the game and the winner took all – pity the R500 did not go anywhere at all to off-set the cost of the joll!
The point of this rather rambling post is to remind us that keeping a record of our progress is key to success. I am one of those obsessive types who weighs in every morning of my life; the result is then recorded in my Benutriwise profile. I also have a weekly Thursday morning date at Weigh-Less as well so talk about overkill!!!! I hasten to add (and my spouse will bear this out) that I have learnt over the years not to stress over the scale results. The results are simply recorded without any dramatics on my part and I sit down every Sunday morning and quietly look at the week’s results. The process serves to keep me focussed and to make continual corrections on the great odyssey!
To graphically illustrate my progress against a weekly weight loss target of .5kg, I use an Excel graph. I print it in colour on Sundays and keep it in a file until the following week. A bold red target weight line descends from left to right and it is intersected with a bold green actual weight line which is my Sunday morning weight. Vertical axis shows target weight descending .5kg weekly from my starting weight down to goal weight at the bottom. Horizontal axis shows Sunday dates for 1 year! 9th August 2009 to 8th August 2010.
Wow! those dates really show what a commitment I have made don’t they? As of this morning, I am .2kg (200 grams sounds better) above target for today’s date. The green graph line fascinates me in that it meanders all over the place but always reflects an overall downward drift.
If you would like a copy of my Excel chart to adapt for your own use, let me know and I will send it to you. I believe it could really help to keep you on track to your own unique destination.
Eileen's Odyssey 