This is the Official Shallow Thinker Fitness Report (OSTFR): Volume 3.  If you’d like to catch-up on things, here’s Volume 1 and Volume 2.  Go ahead and read them now.  I’ll wait here.

Up to speed now?  Here are the results.  If you wonder why there are two lines, the short answer is that I’m a nerd.  The long answer is below -

graph

The blue line is my daily weigh-in.  For consistancy, I weigh in every morning at the same time, wearing the same thing.  This removes some of the variation.  Realistically, though, there is still a lot of “noise” in the process.  Not only will my weight fluctuate from day-to-day, but the scale has variation in its process.  For instance, I can step on the scale 10 times in a row and get a few different readings.  Most likely, they’ll be close together, but there’s still some variation.  So, in order to filter out some of that variation and to see if there are any real trends in the data, I put in the red line.  It’s basically a rolling average of the previous 3 days.  This helps to smooth out some of those peaks and valleys and lets me get a realistic view of where I’m headed.

I think on of the problems for people who are weighing-in constantly is that they don’t understand how easily weight fluctuates.  My day 6, for instance, looks horrible and could have easily given me a reason to quit.  A week’s worth of work and no improvement.  When I understand that there’s variation in the process and I look at the trends as a whole, it’s much more encouraging.

So, the summary of OSTFR #3 is that I’ve lost 4 pounds.  I think that really, I’ve lost 10 pounds, but I put 6 more pound of muscle because I am ripped.  A beefcake.  Ladies, better take a number now because there will soon be a line around the block.  (and they’ll all have restraining orders)