Hindsight (-1#)

I'm sitting here pretty frustrated to start this week.  Went last night, had a good workout.  Then I get on the scales and look at my wife's face - always my best first indicator on success or failure.  Nothing.  I ask her - did I lose or gain?  She doesn't know, she forgot last week's number.  Well, annoying, but OK.  We go home and she looks it up - I only lost one pound.

Seriously?  1 lousy pound?  At this rate i'm looking at 2 years to goal. . .I guarantee, i'm not that patient.

The more I think about it though, the more I wonder. . .am I taking enough measurements?  I think the answer is no.  But here's where things get fuzzy, and I really hate ambiguity.  Muscle weighs about 18% more than an equal mass of fat.  That means that if I have been putting on muscle and losing fat, depending on the rate of gain and loss I could see no net change in weight.  I would however see a change in my measurements - around the thighs and abdomen mostly as that is where I carry most of my extra padding.  Unfortunately I did not take measurements on anything other than weight.

So what to do now?  Well, I can obviously start measuring those things.  I would definitely count those numbers coming down as a victory even with no net change in weight.  Theoretically, as long as I don't change my lifting routine at some point i'll plateau and my body would stop building that muscle.  Then it'll just be burning fat and my loss number will go up.

I'm thinking i'll also shift a portion of my low-impact cardio time to the high-impact cardio time.  I want to be really aggressive about this.  I don't plan to live this incredibly restrictive lifestyle forever, it's just not comfortable.  Neither do I intend to go back to how I used to live either - I'm confident I can find a happy middle ground. First, I have to get there though.  To do THAT, I have to make sure to have a whole series of little successes along the way.  I guess it's time to fix my plan.