Losing Stones

Part I 15%: Ch. 3 The First Week

Kitty ached everywhere a body could ache. Lying on the floor, she stretched out her limbs, letting her body settle, all those atoms melding with the atoms of the carpet. Feet: sore. She'd wrapped her pinkie toe for days due to a blister. Calves: sore. Knees: tender. Thighs: screaming in rebellion. Quads: oh my goodness, let me die now. Sitting to pee was a level of excruciating pain she had never known. Getting back up was worse. Butt: painful to sit. Abs: sore. Pecs: thank heaven for sports bras because climbing and descending stairs hurt. Biceps, triceps, forearms: ouch. Neck: surprisingly not bad.

Kim had her drinking water with lemon all day long, 100 ounces at least. That was a lot of peeing to torture her poor quads. She took a supplement called BCAA to help with sore muscles. She had gotten a massage that pointed out every sore body part. Though it was difficult to lower herself into the bathtub, soaking in the solution of lavender and rosemary scented Epsom salt did feel wonderful, until she had to extract her aching blubbery body from its prone position. Every day she fell asleep for a few hours but still awoke sore. 

The week had started a jumble of nerves. Her physical had been forwarded to her fitness counselor Steve. At their initial meeting, he had her climb on the scale backwards. She wasn't going to see her weight. She didn't want to know. She was also a minor, and this wasn't about a number. It was about getting healthy. 

He explained the process, pointing out a chart on the wall of his closet-sized office.

Initial Weight

X 15%

=weight to lose

6-week goal weight

200

X .15

30

170

"Now, this is just an example with a nice, round number to make math easy. I record your initial weight. I will plug this number into a spreadsheet. Then I see what 15% of that weight is. That is the amount of weight you can realistically lose in 6 weeks if you follow the program and work hard. Every week, you will weigh in, and I'll record your new weight. And I see how close you get to your goal. 

"I'm only looking forward at those last two numbers from here on out. We don't focus on the past. We are going forward! Got it?" He waited for her to nod. "Now your doctor and guardian felt you should not see your weight. You do however have the option to know how much of the goal weight loss you have achieved. So,if we use the poster as our example and the first weigh in shows that you have lost three pounds, I can tell you that you are 10% or 1/10 to your 6-week goal. You can opt to know or not know on any weekly weigh in, but you have to tell me at weigh in. Got it?" Kitty nodded again, wondering how close she actually was to the example on the wall.

"Now I need to explain something. We think that each week, if we follow the program, we will see modest weight loss until we reach our goal. If we plot the weight on a graph, it would be a fairly straight line. But, that's not how it works at all. Some weeks, you may lose 3-4 pounds, while other weeks, doing the exact same things, you lose no weight at or all, or even gain a pound or two.