So today is important for 2 reasons:

• It’s been 90 days since I started this journey
• I ran a different set of numbers to see what additional benefits I was achieving with this fitness initiative

I stepped on the scale this morning, and it showed that I lost 18kg so far. That’s an average of 6kg a month over the last 3 months! It feels really good to have achieved that. Sometimes I look at the scale and my two tracking apps (Fitbit and MyFitnessPal), and I feel like they are lying to me. In truth, not many people notice that I have lost 18kg. I guess by many measurements, I am still far away from a healthy weight. But I notice the change in small, but nice ways.

Like for example, this morning I had to wash my favourite pair of black jeans (and in fact all but one pair of jeans). So in a bit of a desperation, I took the last pair of jeans that I saw in the closet and just put them on and went downstairs to the laundry. As I was doing that, I realised that the jeans I was wearing were the black pair of jeans I had put away in the closet back in July 2015 once I had outgrown them. So it was a really nice treat this morning. Once I reach my Phase 1 goal, I think that there are some of the things which I have put away in the back of the closet that I will be able to wear again 🙂

The other things I decided to do this morning was to go to my credit card’s website and download some data. I was interested to test a theory of mine that not only had I been eating better, but I had been doing it for less money than I would have before this fitness journey. So I decided to take two typical travel months, November 2015 and February 2016, and do a comparison on my spending on food at home in Stockholm (I excluded food purchased during business travel and vacation trips).

What I found out is that when I compare November 2015 to February 2016, I spent about twice the amount of money ($700) in November compared to February ($350). So at least the initial analysis confirms that I am literally paying myself to lose weight! It comes about because as a single guy, I make meals typically with 3-4 servings. So there is always something for lunch or dinner the next day. And I tend to prepare food 3 or 4 nights a week and then just rotate those amongst the days. So essentially the cost of one night out is being spread out over 2-3 days.

Anyway, I thought that I’d create a sidebar conversation about some of the other aspects of my fitness journey, since it is more than about weight loss. Until next time!