One of the first things you see when looking at weight loss stories or advice/tips/tricks from professionals is that it isn’t “all about the number”. People commenting on my posts on FB have echoed that advice too — reminding me to also look for success indicators that are not tied to my weight scale. What some experts call “off-the-scale” or “off-scale” success. These “other” indicators become not only philosophically important, moving you from a technical definition of obesity tied to your weight or Body Mass Index to a more functional definition of fitness, but also psychologically crucial if you bust your ass between weigh-ins and yet the needle doesn’t move because you’ve hit a plateau.

And with my typical analytical zeal, combined with my love of all things performance measurement related at work, I adapted my approach to take into account these “other factors”. I also used my research time to look at various milestones to give me way stations along the journey, markers to tell me I’ve achieved some arbitrary measure of success, something other than the obvious 157 little milestones for each pound lost or one big milestone at the end.

So with a bit of extra zeal, here are the first three sets of indicators for my journey.

A. Weight-loss milestones

While these are still “weight-based”, they are more about specific milestones. With my overall weight goal of going from 342 pounds down to 185, i.e. a drop of 157 pounds, that number is too big to be much motivation on a short-term basis. Instead, I broke it down in 10% increments…10% of 157, 20% of 157, etc. This gives me 10 clear targets between my start and finish. I have also added in 5 other weight targets, mini-objectives that fall between those 10% increments (1 each between 20 and 30%, 30% and 40%, 40% and 50%, 60% and 70%, and finally 90% and 100%) based on another more psychological total, numbers that are symbolic to me. Which means, for those doing basic math at home, I have 15 weight-related milestones to focus on.

Progress so far:

My first milestone was Level 1, the loss of 10% of my full goal. This worked out to 15.7 pounds, and would take me to 326.3. Back in Week 17, I hit below that number for the first time — 319.8 on October 10th. LEVEL ONE ACHIEVED!

Next goal: 310.6 (20%)

My next working target is 310.6, or 20% of my overall target. I’m at week 26 this week and the last 8-9 weeks have been frustrating on this front as I have hit a plateau, which goes hand-in-hand with finding it hard to regain my original commitment and momentum to be eating the way I’m supposed to be each day.

B. Body measurements

One type of indicator that most weight loss programs use to track non-scale success is measurement of various parts of the body. The premise is simply that you may be still making progress, but muscle is denser than fat, and you might be getting “leaner” without getting “lighter”, or you might be moving/shifting weight around on your body. If the goal is to be fit, not simply “lighter”, those shifts and changes may indicate forms of progress that your simple weight scale won’t pick up. It’s also one of the reasons why so many people hate BMI as a measurement tool — people with the same overall weight and height have the same BMI, yet they could be in two totally different sets of proportions and degrees of fitness. Scales, and the BMI, can tell you one story, but not necessarily the whole story.

Awhile ago, I had helped someone with a diet program and their program used a bunch of measurements. I was shocked by two things. First and foremost, that the numbers were not as precise as I expected. Measuring my own neck, for instance, can give me widely different numbers (shifting as much as 5%) just by slightly altering the angle or how tight you pull the tape measure. It is, regrettably, incredibly imprecise. Secondly, I discovered that all those ads on TV where someone lost 14 inches in one week, etc. was incredibly misleading. I never really thought about them, I assumed they meant around the waist. In some cases, sure, but in other cases it was some misleading math — two inches off their chest, four inches off their waist, two inches off each leg, etc. until it added up to a “loss of 14 inches”. Really? REALLY? Hmm…not even sure that qualifies as legal, but it is certainly misleading.

Anyway, regardless, I went through a whole bunch of websites that talked about these types of measurements and came up with a list of 16 areas of my body to measure and track progress. I do the measuring, which isn’t that effective, and Jacob does the recording on a sheet of paper, every two weeks. He then takes three pictures of me in my non-stylish, least flattering gray shorts: first straight-on and then right and left profiles.

I’ve been looking really hard at the measurement data, and the only solution I can come up with the random fluctuations each week between my shifting it a slight half-inch or pulling a bit tighter or looser than last time is to average them out. Perhaps a three-measurement average. Over time, those “effects” should, I think, cancel each other out a bit. If the average goes down, it should indicate progress not controlled by vagaries of measurement. I guess. I honestly don’t know, I just know that the measurements are wonky, not static/stable. Equally, if I take the marketing approach and add everything up, it will iron out glitches in individual measurements even more i.e. if there is a “net change” overall, I’m making progress.

Progress so far: 1 inch

If the mathematical approach is to add up all the “inches”, I guess I’ve lost an inch overall. However, given that I don’t really know what my “goals” are for each of these areas, my real progress is that I have done the measurements four times (the Seinfeld Method for consistency of measurements, yay me!). Since I do the measurements two weeks apart, the rolling average of 3 basically means “over the course of the last four weeks” i.e. a monthly measurement, updated biweekly, which sounds about right.

But here is the completely wonky part. I know the math doesn’t make any sense to add up all the measurements, not really, just in a generic sense that if the overall totals go down, you are “smaller”. Or if one specific area is something you are targeting, sure. And while I know all that, the fact that all of it adds up to an overall loss of 1 inch, 1 measly inch, is encouraging. As I said, I plateaued a few weeks ago, so I’ll take any progress I can find. Even ones of dubious lineage.

Next goal: ?

While I’m hoping the numbers change overall, I don’t really have specific numerical goals for each part, except perhaps my pants size. I have a 30 inch inseam, and I’d like to get to the point where I could wear 30″/30″ pants. I vaguely remember being in pants at the 28/30/32″ range and I know someone I consider reasonably fit who is also 30″. I feel like 34″ would be too big, but I really don’t know. I guess I’ll fine tune this as I get close. However, in the meantime, I’ll track it. Maybe it will show movement when I’m stuck on a plateau, like now.  A friend really likes the idea of dropping a “dress size”, but since that doesn’t really work for men, the pants size is about the best I can do for now.

C. Qualitative Indicators

I mentioned above that I researched the heck out of various websites and other resources to find “other” indicators that I could use to mark progress, and as I did so, many of them were completely irrelevant to me. Some of them were lifestyle issues that I don’t have, or choices that are not part of my mindset, or involved specific types of partnerships that I don’t have or don’t want. Which left me picking and choosing from a laundry list of possible indicators to come down to some that are applicable to me. My final list is a mish-mash of some 40 items and it looks chaotic even to me. Some of them I’ve already achieved, so it’s not as bad as having 40 still out there, but I feel like they need a bit of a framework to help me understand them, let alone explain them to others. This is what I have come up with.

Progress so far: Multiple items

I don’t know if those six categories are the right categories exactly, but they’re good enough to get going. And, as you can see from the list, I have made some progress already:

– Commit to the journey
– Announce goal
– Get professional help
– First weigh-in
– First pound
– First set of measurements
– Discussed it with Andrea and Jacob
– Discussed it with professionals
– Discussed it with friends and family last week (family gathering)
– Have received an unsolicited compliment that someone noticed a change
– Andrea finds it “easier” to hug me now, not quite as big around as I was

Next goal: Complete Tier 1

The big hold-outs for me in Tier 1 is mainly around getting going on the fitness. I had hoped to meet with the kinesiologist soon to get some help with that, but with some scheduling issues, that won’t happen until January. In the meantime, I will get started on my own. Which requires a crapload of work in the basement to get it all arranged properly. But that’s why I took the time off, right? 🙂

And that’s a wrap for almost all of the measurements/indicators. If you know of others, I’m happy to consider them!

Next week, I’ll blog about taking ALL of the measurements, turning them on their head, and going hard-core on 18 unique ones.