Data and Statistics

Date: 3/12/13 (Day 17)
Last Night's Bedtime Weight: 208.2
Morning Weight: 206.7 (BMI: 31.4)
Pounds Down: 9
Pounds to go: 31
Days Left: 191
Workout Summary: Elliptical Climber, 33 min, 413 Cal; Lateral, 33 min, 361 Cal; Rope, 10 min, 302

Kicking ass tonight, and feeling GREAT!



Now, Anonymous left a a comment in my last post about how it seemed like I was stuck at my current weight.  And from a certain perspective, it might seem that way.  See, I'm updating just about every day, taking data every day, and so... not much visible progress.  Some weight loss guru's tell you NOT to take your weight every day for that very reason - it will seem stagnant and you'll get discouraged.

But I'm an engineer, and the resident "statistics guru" in my office, even amongst other engineers. I LIKE data. I like to see trends. I like to study them, and analyse it. It's kind of a sickness.  But it's part of just about everything I do.  So I'd like you to take a look at this:

This is a scatter plot of all the weight data I've taken, just about all of which has been reported previously in this blog. Blue line is "morning weight," Red line (at Anonymous' suggestion) is "bedtime weight."  Now, of course I could play with the scale to make the graph look more or less dramatic, (one of the few relatively honest Fox News tricks) but despite fluctuations, I think it's easy to see that the trend is clearly DOWNWARD.

Also, because I'm taking a morning and night weight, I have some other information as well. (Thanks again, Anonymous. Best thing you've posted yet.) (Well, the only thing of value, actually, but still.) I know that, since 3/2, when I started collecting this data, I've averaged a gain of 1.50 pounds during the day, against an average loss of 1.77 pounds at night.  And that does NOT include any data prior to that, like the first couple days, when I was losing well over a pound a day. (Water loss.)  So, on average, I've been losing 0.27 pounds per day, just over the past week and a half.  As my goal was to lose 40 pounds, in 208 days, (0.19 pounds per day,) so far, I'm well on track.  And actually from where I am now, to my birthday in September, I only have to average just under 0.17 pounds per day, so I'm really well on track, especially if I can get past this apparent wall I'm hitting right now.  (Which, BTW, is very common, and similar to other times that I've done this in years past. Another week or so, and things SHOULD start moving a little quicker.)

In any case, the reason I point all this out, is that you have to be careful when you're looking at small bits of data at a time. You know... kind of like how a few years of steady global temperatures doesn't mean that Global Warming is over!

;)