My guess is when most people find themselves writing “Day 7000″ they’re only doing it to exaggerate. It’s not actually the seven thousandth day of their diet, just as they don’t actually weigh seven thousand pounds (even if that’s what they like to tell people).

But I’m not most people. Today really is Day Seven Thousand for me.

No joke.

If you’ve been around this blog a while and/or read that wonderful book which you see over on the left, you know two things about me:

1. I’ve been at this a while
2. I like to weigh myself. A lot.

I wouldn’t go all the way to obsession. (More like compulsion, perhaps?) Either way, it’s just what I do. It’s not a good thing; it’s not a bad thing; it just is.

So bright and early this morning, I hop out of bed, weigh in, open up the spreadsheet, and type in the numbers. And there it is. Day 7000:

The astute reader will notice two things:

1. Yes, I still use Excel ’95
2. I don’t weigh myself every day

There are only 4373 entries, which means, on average, I only weigh myself about 62% of the time. However, that number is a bit skewed since there were long stretches early on where I didn’t weigh in at all. (For example, there are only 48 rows for all of 1990.)

But I digress.

You see, the fact that it’s Day Seven Thousand isn’t nearly as interesting as this next little tidbit. Ready? For kicks, and in honor of this momentous occassion, I thought I’d take a peek at Day One again. You know, the Day One. The First One Ever. Here’s what I saw:

See anything odd?

Check out my weight.

Day One: 194.0
Day Seven Thousand: 194.5

Never mind the fact that I hit 168.0 on September 8, 1991 (yes, you read that right). Never mind the fact that I hit 239.0 on January 2, 1997 (you also read that right). The net result of this extraordinarily painful exercise over the course of 19.165 years is: a half pound gain.

Oh well. At least it gave me something to talk about.

I don’t look at my weekly weigh-in data until it’s time to write up that week’s post. So up until that time, my image of how the week is going is whatever my brain feels like making up. (Hmmm… You know, that basically describes every aspect of my life.)

Last night, I was so sure that this week’s graph would look like this, that I almost didn’t even bother creating one:

But my inner geek just can’t let the numbers go. So he made the chart and lo and behold, it wasn’t as flat as I thought it was.

Perception ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Although I started the week back in the Danger Zone, things actually turned out okay. My normal end-of-week abrupt change went the other direction this week, which I’m sure is bound to happen once per presidential administration.

On the up side? I managed to keep things level. On the down side? Doritos. More on that in a later post.

Yet again I’m enjoying how my weight averaging is working. It looks like I dropped three pounds this week: from 198 to 195. However, the average of the two weeks is a gain of about a third of a pound. I know the vast majority of the cool kids would take the 3 pound drop over the 1/3 pound gain, but my inner geek knows that doesn’t count. That’s just his M.O. Especially when he knows next week is highly likely to go from 195 back to 198 and he’d really rather not report a 3 pound gain.

Spam Update

Good news everybody! Mike is still posting. Ironically his very next post was in response to last week’s post.

Please do tell us how you make all this money and all it costs is your dignity and respect.

More fan mail for the week:

Gary, rest assured, I will post more articles. And Mr. Mystery Person: notify me about what? Don’t leave me hanging like that? And why was your contact info so nasty? Surely that isn’t what you wanted to notify me about!

In Other News

Okay, okay, that’s two weeks in a row now where I’ve only posted to this one category. If nothing else, my long-tem “post daily” regimen actually forced me to post. This summer vacation thing is getting to me.

I didn’t do any actual book writing this week, but that’s not a bad thing, as I never planned to. Spent all my time on what I broadly categorize as “backstory”. In short, all the work that goes into the book that doesn’t actually go into the book I lump into “backstory.”

And I will write something about it.

Real Soon Now™.

Wow. A whole week between posts! How very strange. Not that that’s good or bad in and of itself—just different. I suppose it’s like breaking any sort of routine or habit. Like the week after finals or when they suddenly (and without warning) make you turn around and skate clockwise at the roller rink.

Did you miss me? I know all my spammers did. Especially this guy:

I’m really happy Mike thinks I write well and that I should write more about it. That’s what makes it all worth it.

Anyway, I’m back today. If you’re wondering what I did with all my copious amounts of free, non-blogging time this past week, I basically spent it at work. ’Nuff said.

If you’re wondering how the Magical Mystery Tour went this week, then you’ve definitely come to the right place. Today I wanted to talk about the difference between what’s ideal and what’s real. Ideality is getting that six-week term paper done four days after it was handed out. Reality is getting that six-week term paper done four minutes before you have to hand it in.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

The usual story. I’d love to say, “Gosh, why do these things keep happening to me?” But I can’t. Not when the answer lies close at hand in an empty box of Cheez-Its.

Here’s the usual chart. I think it’s official: I’m in a rut. Granted, I’d rather lose 27.857 pounds and be in a rut than lose 3.729 pounds and be in a rut. But a rut’s a rut no matter where you are. That being said, I haven’t gone back and looked at the big-picture graph lately, and I probably should. Right after I get back from the store, replenishing my Cheez-It supplies.

So what else didn’t go as planned? Well, in the 34 minutes a day I’m not at work, not in the car, and not sleeping, I thought I would move forward on the new book. (I did promise to tell y’all about it more. I haven’t yet. I will at some point.)

Exhibit A, the number of pages I was going to write:

Exhibit B:

All joking aside (okay, that wasn’t a joke) I did make some progress. But it’s all (what I call) research & development. No actual work on the book itself. Stay tuned for more details. Especially you, Mike. I know how much you like my writing.

It knows. I know it knows. It knows that “194″ is officially the “thirty pounds lost” mark. And every time I hit that milestone, my body retaliates. “Ha ha!” my body says, mocking me. “Try to outsmart me, will ya?”

Check it out:

On the one hand, I was happy Wednesday. I optimistically wrote, “And it’s only Wednesday!” in my spreadsheet. I then pessimistically wrote right next to it, “I’m sure I’ll screw it up somehow…”

And look at that: gained two pounds over night. I’m not entirely surprised. I ate a ginormous amount of popcorn that evening, while watching Up. The part I don’t get is why it’s quite common to gain two, three, or four pounds overnight, but it takes days and weeks to get back down. It just doesn’t add up.

That said, on average it was a pretty good week. I’m still a big fan of averaging the seven days and using that number. It means one bad day won’t mess it up (under the old reckoning, this week would have been a zero pound change: a far less interesting number). Of course, it also means a big drop at the end won’t swing the average much either. But that’s as it should be. And besides, when is there ever a big weight drop at the end of the week?