Putting It In Perspective

I've officially lost the equivalent of a five gallon jug of water.

Nice!

At my weigh in today, I had lost 5.8 pounds since last Wednesday. That brings me down to 263.6 and my grand total to 40.4 pounds lost from my 304 pound starting weight.

According to this awesome list, that's also the equivalent of the average human leg. I can't believe it...a whole five gallon jug of water. I can barely lift one of those to put into a water dispenser.

When I lost my first pound on Weight Watchers in August, I went around the house trying to find an equivalent weight for comparison. For the next several pounds, I used water bottles. One bottle of water was just over a pound. That first night, I carried a water bottle around with me and made myself constantly notice just how much weight that was. It was a tangible reminder of what I was beginning, and how much progress I had made already. Just one pound, but it was heavy in my hand.

A few more pounds, a few more water bottles. Within a few weeks, I was coming home on Wednesday nights and gathering up an armload of water bottles to lug around so I could feel how much weight I had shed. One water bottle at a time, it really started to add up.

Then I hit 13 pounds. That's how much my mini pinscher weighs. For a small dog, that little dude is heavy! Draping him over my arm made me tired and sore after five or ten minutes...I couldn't believe I'd carried that much weight on me at all times before then.

Before long, I had lost the equivalent of my dog times two. It was harder to visualize that. 26 pounds. Then I hit 37 pounds and saw what 37 pounds of cat looked like...that's a lot of freaking cat.

My girlfriend told me yesterday about the list linked above. Some of her coworkers are doing a Biggest Loser-style challenge, and one had sent her that list. As of last week's weigh in, I had lost the equivalent of a mid-sized microwave. That's fucking heavy!

It took me some Google digging, but I finally found the source of the list so I could look up today's weight loss total. So far, I lost the equivalent of each of these, in order: a Guinea Pig, a dozen Krispy Kreme glazed donuts, a rack of baby back ribs, an average human brain, an ostrich egg, a Chihuahua, a human’s skin (GROSS!), an average newborn, a human head, chemical additives an American consumes each year (*scary*), an average housecat, a Bald Eagle (whoa), 10 dozen large eggs (wait, seriously? That seems like a shit ton of eggs), a sperm whale’s brain (that's a big brain), an auto tire (holy cow...), amount of pizza an average American eats in a year (mmm pizza), a 3-gallon tub of super premium ice cream (again, yum), an average 2 year old (a whole kid!), amount of cheese an average American eats in a year (I can say with confidence that I far surpass this amount), a cinder block (heavy.), a mid-size microwave, and now a 5-gallon bottle of water or an average human leg.

That's just...wow. When I think of each of those, I just can't imagine lugging it around with me everyone I went. But I did. No wonder I was so tired all the time. That's a lot of work.

Considering how lazy I was, it's surprising that I was willing to carry all of that extra weight. Well, I guess that's one reason that I did as little 'carrying' as possible, and preferred instead to stay on the couch whenever I could. Now that I've dropped some of the burden, I do feel lighter in many ways. As hard as I tell myself I've been working at this, it really doesn't amount to much more than making sure I track what I eat and being vigilant about measuring out my portions. So it might feel like hard work, but I know for a fact that it's easier than going through life with a five gallon jug strapped to my back. Or a microwave. Or even a two year old child :)