Lowering the Ceiling

Dearest Rachel –

…And this is why I think I can still take a little pride in just maintaining my weight while traveling the world on that cruise ship, despite never quite being able to escape from that same ten-pound range I would occasionally feel trapped in. The fact that I didn’t gain a considerable amount of weight over those three months ought to be considered an accomplishment in itself.

Anyway, I should probably give you a little more recent context, even though I think you may have gleaned enough to know what’s been going on over the past couple of months since returning. You’ve heard my complaints about how I’ve still been trapped in that same range I was hovering in during the cruise. This, despite both reducing my caloric intake (at least as far as I could tell; I wasn’t constantly going back to get seconds, and it’s easier to keep to a two-meal-a-day schedule when you’re the one preparing the meals) and picking up an exercise regimen that was more frequent and vigorous than it had been before.

I did wonder if it might not be attributable to the fact that the food available to the American consumer might be inherently worse for me (and, by extension, all of us) than, say, the stuff I could find aboard ship. Certainly, on the Serenade of the Seas, I was kept from the combined temptation of going through a box of cracker snacks while binge watching some series on the television. I mean, you could do the latter on board, but why would you, when there was so much else to do? But while they had plenty of gustatory options at all hours of the day and night, chips and crackers were virtually unheard of aboard ship. I’m starting to wonder if that wasn’t a crucial factor, especially in terms of being a weakness of mine…

Whatever the reason, the last couple of months haven’t produced anything noticeable in terms of further progress on the weight loss front since returning. I was still dealing with a ceiling of 230 pounds, and a floor of 220; there was no breaking through the latter, in particular. Which is frustrating; while I can accept that there must be a point where I can’t lose any more weight – or if I did, it would likely be unhealthy to do so – I didn’t think I was already at that plateau. And yet, the scale was telling me that I wasn’t getting anywhere, even with ramping the number of days spent in the gym, as well as the level of activity while there. On the ship, I could excuse it with the quantity (and quality) of the food available, but what was going on here at home?

The one thing I hadn’t attempted since returning was a weekend fast, like I used to do on occasion before leaving for the trip. And I’ve told you about how that went; while I don’t think my illness had any connection with this effort, but my monkey brain still can’t help but look for patterns and seize on them, even when they don’t actually exist.

But between the fast and the subsequent illness, I actually started to see results. Every day of the ‘work’ week had at least one moment – usually after my morning workout – that showed me finally breaking through the floor that I hadn’t touched since November. Indeed, there was one 48-hour span in which every reading showed me at (and that only because I stepped on the scale just before bed, which I’ve been told is a terrible time to be checking one’s weight) or below 220 pounds. The fact that I would bob back up after eating didn’t bother me; I’d gotten below this longstanding floor, and had proven I could get back down there again consistently; I was back to being able to make progress again.

With that breakthrough achieved, I was happy to go along with Kerstin’s request for the gang to meet at a local Chinese buffet that she’d grown fond of. It wasn’t a new place, or a new discovery for her (at least I don’t think so), but it had been a long time since we’d been there; my financial diary indicates that the last time I’d paid for a meal there (which is effectively the same as saying ‘the last time I/we ate there’) was in October of 2016. As I recall, the place was… okay. It was your average Chinese buffet, with an additional sidelight of having an option to have slices of meats and assorted vegetables fried up hibachi-style to order. It was filling, and a decent value, but nothing to write home about.

So why am I writing you about it now, especially since you probably could recall the place just from what little description I’ve just given you? Well, this was an opportunity to test how far my progress had taken me. I was about to majorly cheat on my diet, with an all-you-can-eat buffet; how far would this set me back, especially with a post-gym weigh-in of 218 pounds that morning? And, on the other side, had the restaurant gotten any better than I remembered? Kerstin seemed enthusiastic, and it had survived the Covid era, which had devastated restaurants in general, and buffets in particular; surely, they must have had something special in order to make it out the other side of this challenge.

Well, as much as I regret to inform you that there wasn’t all that much that I could find that was different from how I remember it being, I will admit to having gone through three plates of food (and a small assortment of sushi rolls), as well as several of their dessert offerings. So while it was still “so okay it’s average,” that didn’t stop me from eating my fill, and probably more. It was everything you could expect from a ‘cheat day’ – apart, possibly, from the satisfaction that it was worth it. Then again, it wasn’t so much the meal itself as just being able to get together again that made it so; for whatever reason, it’s been so much more difficult than it used to be. As it was, we were still missing one of our number; and even as we discussed a possible next meet up, we acknowledged that the place Daniel(!) had in mind would probably not be to Logan’s tastes. So we might still have only five of us showing up the next time around, if that.

But at this point, you might be wondering just how much damage I did to my weight plan by cheating as much as I did. Well, I woke up this morning and got onto the scale, and after all that eating, I still weighed in at only 223.5 pounds. I think this means that I’ve lowered my ceiling from 230 to 225; because even after such a heavy meal, I haven’t reached that weight yet. Not that I intend to go back, but still…

And since I’d woken up at the ridiculous hour of four-thirty – too early to head to the gym on a Saturday morning, but too late to reasonably expect to go back to bed and get any more sleep before the place opens up – I started in on this letter to you, to fill you in on what happened, as well as what I thought to be noteworthy about it. But I also put in a truncated (which is to say, slightly less than an hour) time at the gym; so you might think I would be back on my way to the two-hundred-teens right away.

Nope; my first two weigh-ins registered 224.0, followed by two readings of 223.5 (because that didn’t make a lick of sense to me). All that work hadn’t dropped an ounce, it seemed. At the same time, it was still under my new ceiling, and after taking a shower and washing off all that sweat, I had dropped another pound to get down to 222.5, but it looks like today is going to be the first since Tuesday to not get a reading below two-twenty. So it looks like I’m going to need to take another crack at a weekend fast – right after I grab myself some lunch.

Anyway, that’s how things are going by me, honey. Keep an eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.