Day 23

There's no question that right now I'm at the point where dozens of my diets have died in the past.  The knee injury (which fortunately seems to have gone away today) gave me the excuse not to exercise, and between hanging with friends and feeling kind of crappy (again due to the knee injury) I've been eating a lot more junk than normal.  If this were two years ago the diet would be falling apart.  Yesterday or today I would have "forgotten" to update my calorie counts.  I would have decided to "take a day off" from the diet.

The one thing keeping me honest at the moment is the blog.  Even with the blog, it's possible I undercounted calories on the last couple days.  Never the less, while I'm planning to rest the knee for another couple days before experimenting with running again, I think when the time comes to pick it back up later this week I should be able to get back on track without too much difficulty.  I've probably gained back a couple pounds, but the trend should start going back down again.

Food today:  egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast (300 calories), turkey sandwich for lunch (500 calories), a cheeseburger for dinner (800 calories), and chips as snacks during the day (800 calories probably between all the chips).

Today's Results:
Daily Food Total:  2400
Exercise:  0
Points Earned:  600
Total Points Earned:  28385
Points to go:  171615

Day 58

So I read somewhere that of the major diet plans (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc) Weight Watchers has the highest success rate.  However the success rate quoted was only 3%.  So of all the people who start Weight Watchers, only three percent hit their target weights and then keep the weight off.  For the other programs the success rate is even worse.

What I wonder about with this is actually the question of what constitutes a success.  If success is hitting a target weight and then maintaining it indefinitely it seems like most people would be doomed to failure since simple changes in eating habits could mess up the weight target, particularly for people only looking to lose a little weight.  As I've proven, it can take much less than you might think to gain or lose 10 pounds.

So if we don't measure success by weight, what else do we measure it by?  For my Challenge here, it's been calories saved, but that could be reasonably meaningless, and wouldn't work for anyone.  Is success a lower cholesterol or blood pressure?  Could it be having the ability to consistently run for an hour on the treadmill?

I'm not really sure, particularly in relation to the success rates mentioned above.  That failure rate isn't just people who never reach their target weight.  It's also people who hit it and then go back up.  So what constitutes long-term success.  My challenge is specifically targeted at a 9 month or less interval.  After those 9 months are up, what do I do then?  I hope to be healthier of course, but I could easily see myself falling back into old habits.  If I do though, am I a failure, or something else?

Food today:  egg and cheese sandwich with milk (300 calories), turkey sandwich (500 calories), peanuts and a Christmas cookie (250 calories), and four slices of cheese pizza for dinner (1000 calories).  Exercise was the walk around downtown (100 calories).

Today's Results:
Daily Food Total:  2050
Exercise:  100
Points Earned:  1050
Total Points Earned:  76097
Points to go:  123903