Miniimize Me Rotating Header Image

Progress

The wheels of progress grind slowly up in here. These posts document the journey toward achieving my goals. Word.

Day Fifteen: Mysterious Expansion

The balance board began today’s Wii Fit session with a strangely formatted bit of advice. An ill omen?

Strange Advice - October 21st, 2009

Thanks balance board, but I live in San Francisco where it is neither warm nor cold. It is, at all times, a tepid grey purgatory, just the way I likes it. I’m sure I’ve got nothing to worry about.

Or do I?

Wii Fit Weight - October 21st, 2009

Gabba gabba wha?? I’ve gained 2.2 pounds? Where could this have come from? It’s as though my body was aware that it was about to drop out of the 170′s, and decided that it would by no means allow me to feel good about that. Curse you body! Why must you convert the air I breathe into rich creamy chocolate?

The Wii Fit Age is still 29. Real creative choice, balance board.

Wii Fit Age - October 21st, 2009

I suppose the 2 lb. bump falls within the normal daily fluctuations. Still, I was getting used to seeing more decreases than increases, and I suppose I got a bit spoiled by it. Assuming today is a blip, things still seem to be moving in a good direction overall.

Weight Loss Trend - October 21st, 2009

Today was a rest day on the EA Sports Active 30-day challenge. I walked a couple of miles and also completed the Daily Burn dumbell leg and abs workout.

I’m still using 10 lb. weights to ease myself into lifting heavy objects. I’m not looking to pack on muscle, just to keep it from withering away. The next step up in the dumbbells that I have is 25 lbs. each, which is more than I feel I can safely do for some of the exercises right now.

Oh hello, there’s a progress photo today.

Progress Photo - October 21st, 2009

You may be wondering why it is I wear this goofy getup instead of going full monty… or at least shirtless. The latter would probably be a lot more illustrative of any changes to my mortal shell.

Rest assured gentle reader, the shirtless versions of these photos exist. But they have not been posted for a simple reason – I find them difficult to look at right now. Assuming things work out according to plan and I end up getting closer to a shape that I’m happy with, I’ll definitely whip up before and afters with a full spectrum in the middle that reveals all. But for now, I’m going to keep the public photos a bit more demure.

Day Eight: Leaping Lizards and Lugubrious Legs

A wise man once said no g-news is good g-news, unless it’s gary gnus. In keeping with that gentle spirit, there is no news to report on the weight front. Since it’s the exact same as yesterday, I feel like the balance board should reward me. It’s usually so pleased when things remain perfectly still.

Wii Fit Weight - October 14th, 2009

Despite the limited movement in my tonnage, the board saw fit to reduce my age by a couple of years. Perhaps that was my reward for keeping my corporeal heft motionless from one day to the next.

Wii Fit Age - October 14th, 2009

Moving on from Wii Fit to EA Sports Active, I have here a prepared statement:

EPH JUMP SQUATS & JUMP LUNGES

As we touched upon yesterday, there is an inherent dissonance between the idea on the one hand of being overweight, and on the other of flinging your body up into the air as high as you can. Yes, it’s good exercise. But it doesn’t make for good neighborly relations if you’ve got someone living underneath your stomping ground.

What’s more, I was being criticized the entire time for my pace and enthusiasm. I don’t know what I was doing wrong.

A jump lunge is performed by getting into a lunge position, jumping, and switching the placement of your feet in the air so that when you land you are lunged on the other leg. It’s a little tricky, but easy enough to pick up. The thing with jump lunges is you have to make the transition fast, or you land funny. I felt like I was doing them right, but every time I got a warning from the trainer that said TOO QUICK.

What was too quick? Did I jump too soon? I don’t think that was the problem. The problem seemed to be that I wasn’t suspended in mid-air like a tubby weather balloon for as long as it would have liked. Then comes the messages from the instructor, “I know you can do better than that” or “You’re not going to break a sweat with that pace.”

I’m sorry I’m not a buoyant as you’d like, jackass. I’ll suck down some helium next time and curse at you in munchkin voice, will that make you happy? I’m guessing not.

Aw well, here are the results:

EA Sports Active - October 14th, 2009

Wait… “Excellent timing and power on my jump lunges today?”

WHAT???

EA Sports Active is an abusive boyfriend. It tears me down with unrealistic demands, and then takes me out to its camaro. It tells me I’m the best. Promises it’s going to be better to me. We go out to the Pig & Poke and eat french fries with ranch dressing out of a cone, and it drapes its threadbare letterman jacket over me as I fall asleep drooling on the dashboard to the sounds of Bat Out of Hell.

And I’m never heard from again.

After finishing with EA Sports Active I moved on to the Daily Burn abs and legs workout. Since my legs were already sore from the squatting, lunching, jumping, and running that EA-SA had me doing, everything was kind of rubbery ad non-responsive. Still, I got through all of it except the squats, which just weren’t happening.

Since it’s been a week now, here’s an updated progress picture. Not a lot of change. Wearing the same goofy outfit for consistency’s sake. Probably should have used the flash since the sun was going in and out. Oh well, you still get the idea.

Progress Photo - October 14th, 2009

Have you had to do any of the leaping activities on EA Sports Active? Did they make you want to die, or actually die? Did the game recognize what you were doing properly?

Day One – Progress Photo (Before)

I know we’ve already done the before picture. But since we’re rebooting it seemed like a good idea to start off with a new one.

Octoboer 7th 2009 progress (Before)

I think the “t-shirt tucked into cut-off dress slacks swaddling 30 pounds of spare meat” look is going to catch on. This image is my first salvo in a campaign against the fashionistas who claim people should attempt to look, as they say, good.

Is my posture really that bad? Maybe Wii Fit is on to something.

This is the longest pregnancy ever.

179 lbs. today.
36.5″ waist

Das Reboot: Relaunching Miniimize Me

July 13th, 2009 I embarked on a fantastic journey to lose weight, improve my overall health, and have fun doing it. The project would use the Nintendo Wii as the primary exercise tool, and take 90 days to complete. At the beginning of the project, I weighed 177 pounds. The goal was to reach 149.5 pounds by October 10th.

Today it’s October 7th. According to the plan, I should be within striking distance of my target weight; preparing to celebrate my triumph with a nice healthy carrot (which, according to the plan, I would have developed a taste for).

So, how far do you think I’m off by? Two pounds? Five? It couldn’t be as much as ten – could it?

Let’s try 29.5 pounds.

Why is that Mii smiling?

Why is that Mii smiling?

I’m actually two pounds heavier than when I began back in July! How could this have happened? I guess the simple reasons are:

  • I stopped being mindful of what I ate
  • I stopped exercising
  • And I stopped updating this blog

Ah. It turns out to be pretty straightforward.

I’ve been stressing out about what to do with this blog for weeks. I felt the options were:

  1. Scrap the blog and consider the project a failure
  2. Scrap all the old content and restart the blog from scratch
  3. Or, pick up from where I left off, acknowledging that I screwed up

I gave serious thought to all three.

Scrapping the blog would eliminate the gnawing feeling of guilt, absolving me from dwelling on how I didn’t follow through.

The balance board never forgets

The balance board never forgets

According to the stats for this blog, very few readers have visited since it first went up. Even fewer repeat visitors. I could have just thrown away all the old content and started fresh. A clean slate sounded very appealing. After all, who would know? I liked the idea of pretending the initial failure to launch never happened.

But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that plastering over my mistakes wasn’t the right way to go. For one thing, even if the readers didn’t know that I had failed the first time out, I would. And that would bother me. For another, failure is instructive. To pretend that it didn’t happen would be a disservice to the readers and to myself.

Lots of people start exercise plans and diets with the best intentions, but barely make it past the first couple of weeks. It’s hard to make a change in your life. You’re often working against deeply ingrained patterns in yourself and among your social group. It’s only natural that the friction at the outset is going to knock you around and make you screw up. But, I don’t think that’s a fault.

The fault would be allowing those early stumbles stop you from trying again, and again, and again until you reach your goal.

That’s why today I’m trying again. It’s Day One – October 7th, 2009. This is the soft relaunch of Miniimize Me, the 90 day Wii weight loss project. Now is the beginning of a fantastic story, I look forward to sharing it with you.

The Wagon – A Slight Slip From It

I have fallen from the wagon this week into a big pile of cow mess.

Dysentery Dystopia

I haven’t done any serious exercising since Monday, and even Monday is debatable.

There’s no good reason. No crushing demands on my time. No excuse for me to cling to. But in the interest of learning something from the experience, I will venture a guess as to what’s happened.

No Plan for this Week

Unlike weeks one and two, I didn’t start this week with a plan. That made it easy for me to cheat, since I didn’t have any specific goals. I had hoped to maintain the momentum from last week and simply stay in good habits, but it seems that’s not specific enough. I need to define clearer goals for the week, and maybe even day by day to ensure that they get done.

Momentum

After letting one day slip, it was pretty easy to let the next one slip, and so on. Even though I didn’t have specific goals, I did have the overall goals from week one of exercising regularly and eating better. But once I had cheated and gotten away with it with no obvious consequences it was more comfortable to let the next day slide.

Willpower and Accountability

As I mentioned at the outset of this project, one of the reasons for doing this publicly in a blog rather than a private journal or spreadsheet was that I have very little willpower when it comes to things like diet and exercise. I had hoped that by tracking progress in a blog I’d feel accountable to the readers, and therefore I’d be more motivated to stay on track. But this blog is new and I haven’t really announced it anywhere yet, so there haven’t been any readers (that I know of).

So in practice it’s been like keeping a private journal but leaving it unlocked in a cupboard no one opens. Yes, someone could find it and read it, but the odds are pretty low. That means that if I slack off or cheat, I’m still accountable only to myself. That should be enough, but in the end I don’t think it will be.

To Do

So what to do now? It seems like I should start with the following:

  • Get back to 30 – 60 minutes of exercise per day
  • Don’t miss any days
  • Spread the word about this blog to some folks
  • Look to communities and other sites for motivation

Hopefully these corrections made now will be enough to get me back on track.

Stat-Tasticks! July 27th, 2009

Weekly Weigh-Ins

Startling Undulations

Startling Undulations

Over the last two weeks my weight has formed something that looks a bit like a letter “W” written by a dying man.

I can’t really explain the wild dips. It may be that I’m not weighing myself at the same time every day (I’m not), or it may be that sometimes I weigh myself before eating and sometimes after. But you wouldn’t think that these factors would lead to such major differences day to day.

Foolishly I took this photo after today’s weigh in, so Monday the 27th appears on here even though it’s technically in week three. While I’m pleased to see my weight crashing below 170 today, I honestly can’t account for how it got there.

This Week’s Weight:

Monday: 176.6 pounds
Tuesday: 176.1 pounds
Wednesday: 174.4 pounds
Thursday: 173.9 pounds
Friday: 175.3 pounds
Saturday: 176.6 pounds
Sunday: 172.8 pounds
BONUS MONDAY: 169.1

What a puzzling roller coaster.

A more sober assesment

A more sober assesment

Whereas my weight was blown this way and that by the wiggles and gyrations of the scale, BMI is a stolid Yankee reacting to only the greatest shifts in weight with a gentle downward slope. While there’s no accounting Sunday and Monday’s sharp declines, it is heartening to see the line dropping toward normal as rapidly as a stock market crash.

This Week’s BMI:

Monday: 26.76
Tuesday: 26.70
Wednesday: 26.43
Thursday: 26.36
Friday: 26.56
Saturday: 26.76
Sunday: 26.20
BONUS MONDAY: 25.63

Measurements

This week’s measurements aren’t significantly different from last. It seems that if I’ve lost weight, it’s come off my butt. I’m okay with that, since my butt is extremely efficient at storing fat. My ability to do push ups, crunches, and squats has also improved. With both the crunches and the squats, I wonder if I’m doing them wrong. The number I’m able to do before my form goes to hell seems surprisingly high. My upper body is still too weak to do many push ups or complete a decent chin up. Unfortunately I don’t have a real chin up bar, so I’m using a loft bed which is less than ideal. Maybe that’s contributing to my failure, or maybe that’s just a convenient and ready excuse. Who’s to say?

This Week’s Measurements:

Height: 68″ (=)
Head: 22.5″ (=)
Neck: 15.5″ (=)
Shoulders: 44″ (=)
Chest: 36.5″ (-)
Bicep: 12″ (+)
Elbow: 11″ (+)
Wrist: 7″ (+)
Belly: 35.25″ (-)
Waist: 35.75″ (-)
Butt: 39″ (-)
Thight: 22″ (=)
Knee: 15″ (=)
Calf: 15″ (-)
Body Fat % Measured by Calipers: 22.1% (=)
Resting Heart Rate: 60 (-)
Max Push Ups: 25 (+)
Max Crunches: 110 (+)
Max Squats: 75 (+)
Max Chin Ups: 0 (=)

This Week’s Paunchy Photo!

July 27th 2009 Progress Photo - Slightly less colorful than last week!

July 27th 2009 Progress Photo - Slightly less colorful than last week!

Despite the wild ride my weight has been on these past couple of days, there isn’t much in the way of visible progress. I still have the pregnancy bump and need of training bra. When I was gaining weight I became bulbous so gradually that I didn’t notice anything was changing. It makes sense that the rate of change will be similar when losing weight. I probably need to lose a fair amount of fat before anything starts to visibly change. Still, it would have been nice if a couple of hours of waggle had translated into a completely transformed sack of me.

Wii Fit Age

If you’ve ever done one of Wii Fit’s body tests, you know that at the end of the test you are given a Wii Fit Age. The lower the age, the better. If this number was used to track your weight and activity level to form an index of your overall health, it could be very useful. Instead what it does is take your weight and your ability to stand perfectly still, and then adds to that two arbitrary tasks involving shifting your weight or standing perfectly still again.

Theoretically it’s measuring your posture, and this somehow relates to health. Practically, it’s not very useful. Nevertheless I’ve been tracking it. As you can see it is a capricious beast. But the overall trend is downward, which is apparently a good thing.

Numbers with something and nothing to do with overall health

Numbers with something and nothing to do with overall health.

Day Nine: Recap – Making a Splash

Today marked a wholehearted embrace of water. I had been estranged from this noble liquid for too long. But today I experienced its intoxicating brand of hydration no fewer than 12 times!

Splish Splash

The downside of all the water is the need to pee frequently. I’m used to my body giving me a gentle nudge to go pee, but after swilling down cup after cup that nudge has become a knife to the ribs. It would be kind of embarassing to pee all over myself like a common Sim, so I’ve been obeying my body’s commands… for now.

By early afternoon my pee had become completely transparent. It is possible that all the water I drank has washed out my insides, and now I am just an enormous scraggly water balloon. While I appreciate the idea of a bladder as clean and barren as a robot spinster’s womb, I do miss theoretical possibility of writing my name in the snow with yellow flourish. I’ve never actually done that, but I’ve always had the capacity if I so chose. Now, that fundamental right has been taken from me and the world is a little smaller for it.

But enough of that. You didn’t come here for the mournful wail of a mournful whale. No, you came for hot statistical action, and you will not leave this place unsatisfied.

Nutrtion Facts:

Total Calories: 1442.5
Calories from Fat: 595
Fat: 68.25 grams
Carbohydrates: 164.5 grams
Fiber: 8 grams
Protein: 107.5 grams

Exercise Level (Moderate):

Walking 1 mile (easy)
Wii Sports Test (easy) [Fitness Age - 51(!)]
Wii Sports Tennis – 12 minutes (moderate)
Wii Fit – 30 minutes (moderate)

Foods Devoured:

Turkey Burger
Italian Bread
Vanilla Yogurt with Chocolate Chunks
Water
Breaded Chicken Tenderloin
Water
Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte
Trader Joe’s Chicken Tikka Masala w/ Cumin Flavored Basmati Rice
Water
Water
Bittersweet Chocolate
Breaded Chicken Tenderloin
Trader Joe’s 50/50 mix
Emmentaler Swiss Cheese
Tomato
Water

Today was not a dining fiasco. It consisted of a lot of convenience food from Trader Joe’s – the Turkey Burger, Breaded Chicken Tenderloin, and Chicken Tikka Masala are all designed to be microwave friendly. But the net result was a low number of calories overall and lots and lots of water. Combined with some physical activity I think today was overall pretty succesful.

Image Attribution:
Picture / License

Stat-Tasticks! July 20th, 2009

Bang Bang! Two shots rang out as the butler scrambled over the upturned end tables toward the maid’s cupboard. Her corset torn on the nail of the false crucifix, a crimson trickle of blood wended its way between her alabaster bosoms, braving the dark crevasse. “Calgon, take me away!” She cried into the night. Before Humphrey could stop her, she had crashed through the third story window, toppling ass over teacup into the smoldering haystack below and the waiting arms of her lover, Calgon of Macedonia.

Calgon clutched her tiny face between his thick square man-paws that reeked of cube steak, manure, and the forbidden passions promised by Aqua Velva. “Did you get them, my love?”

“Here,” She said. “It cost me my fortune, my virtue, and my leg. But by god Calgon, I’ve got them!”

Calgon’s chest hair began to grow.

“Show them to me. At once!” He snatched the stained rumpled parchment from Ragina’s trembling paraffin spackled hand. “Dear God,” he said. “It’s worse than we thought…”

It looks a bit like the Big Dipper's bent cousin, Larry Dipper.

It looks a bit like the Big Dipper's bent cousin, Larry Dipper.

One week down! Looking at my weight fluctuation over the last seven days there is a strange dip on the second day followed by a steady increase over the rest of the week, leveling off around the weekend. I don’t know what could have caused the dip. It may be that that I was weighing myself at different times on different days, and sometimes it would occur before or after one of the life processes had taken places. You know the ones I’m talking about. Food goes in, food comes out. You get my drift.

I am talking about poop.

This Week’s Weight:

Monday: 177.7 pounds
Tuesday: 173.9 pounds
Wednesday: 174.4 pounds
Thursday: 175.9 pounds
Friday: 176.6 pounds
Saturday: 177.5 pounds
Sunday: 176.6 pounds

This is the Big Dipper's lazy Aunt Layabout Linda Dipper

This is the Big Dipper's lazy Aunt Layabout Linda Dipper

BMI tells a less dramatic tale. Instead of the emotional rollercoaster of the weight chart, here we see a gentle dip rather than an abrupt crash. If only the economy could have been measured in BMI rather than Dow Jones. Who knows, perhaps it can?

This Week’s BMI:

Monday: 26.93
Tuesday: 26.36
Wednesday: 26.43
Thursday: 26.66
Friday: 26.76
Saturday: 26.77
Sunday: 26.76

Why didn't you tell me this earlier?

Why didn't you tell me this earlier?

You may recall that jumped through a few hoops to calculate a goal weight using infallible data from such reputable sources as insurance companies, the military, and dubious no-name websites. It turns out that all this time the Wii balance board has been keeping something from me. She had an ideal weight in mind the whole time! It’s a bit like melting Wicked Witch of the West and finding out you could have gone back to Kansas any time you wanted to. In fact, it is that. It is that very thing.

You may recall that the target weight I came up with was 149.58. Now here’s the Wii telling me I should actually be shooting for 145.1. Well, that’s a fine how do you do. I plan to stick with my initial goal for this project. I think the Wii’s suggestion may be overly ambitious for 90 days.

As much as I resent Wii Fit’s cagey passive aggressive way of doling out the information, I do appreciate having it. It is a useful data point, and a goal to consider when the 90 days is all wrapped up.

That is kind of a lot. Could we maybe do it with less?

That is kind of a lot. Could we maybe do it with less? No? Crumbs.

Another little smackerel of information that would have been nice to have earlier. This doesn’t really change anything, but it is handy to have some unit of conversion between weight and BMI. Unfortunate that my conversion factor should be so similar to the sign of the beast, but you takes what you can gets.

Measurements

To my surprise, some of my measurements shifted this week by a quarter inch to a full inch. I wasn’t expecting to see a change, since my overall weight is pretty much the same as it was at the beginning of the week. The only thing I can attribute it to is the whims of fluids inside my body under the thrall of moon’s terrible gravity. Or, it may just be that I’m measuring at a slightly different time of day, or a slightly different spot than I did last time. If a measurement didn’t match up I retook at a few times. These are the results, accurate to my capacity for precision :

Height: 68″ (=)
Head: 22.5″ (=)
Neck: 15.5″ (+)
Shoulders: 44″ (+)
Chest: 37″ (=)
Bicep: 11.75″ (-)
Elbow: 10.75″ (+)
Wrist: 6.75″ (-)
Belly: 35.5″ (-)
Waist: 36.5″ (+)
Butt: 39.5″ (-)
Thight: 22″ (=)
Knee: 15″ (=)
Calf: 15.25″ (-)

New Stat-Tasticks!

I’m going to be throwing in a few additional stats at no extra charge!

Body Fat % Measured by Calipers

First off is body fat measured with calipers as opposed to the scale. Some sites claim this is more accurate than the bioelectric impedance scale. I’m not sure my results will be much better since the calipers require some degree of judgment to pick the right spot to measure. As I’m not trained to use them, I’m not sure if I’m getting the correct measurement. But, the result that they came up with is pretty similar to what I’ve been getting from the scale, so I’m going to assume that they’re in the ball park.

Body Fat % Measured by Calipers: 22.1%

Resting Heart Rate

Resting heart rate is useful for finding your target heart rate – the rate you want to get your heart up to during aerobic exercise to give it a good workout without overdoing it. It’s also something of an indicator of fitness. People who are more fit typically have a lower resting heart rate. I really don’t know if this will change much over the course of the project, but I figured it was a useful data point so I’d include it in the weekly tracker.

Resting Heart Rate: 63 beats per minute

Fitness Benchmarks

These fitness benchmarks are a few common exercises repeated until I’m no longer able to do them with proper form, or doing so becomes not just strenuous, but painful. Theoretically as I lose fat and hopefully replace it with some muscle these numbers will improve. I was actually surprised by how many crunches and squats I was able to do. It seems I have more lower body and core strength than upper body. Not surprising since I actually do walk a fair amount, but hardly ever do any lifting or carrying of heavy stuff.

Max Push Ups: 16
Max Crunches: 90
Max Squats: 60
Max Chin Ups: 0

This Week’s Doughy Photo!

July 20th 2009 Progress - or lack thereof - This is an outfit a retired Spiderman may wear in Boca

July 20th 2009 Progress - or lack thereof - This is an outfit a retired Spiderman may wear in Boca

In defiance of normal pregnancy procedure the food fetus has gotten no larger over the past week. It must have settled into a comfortable size and shape. It hasn’t been kicking as much either. These swim trunks were discarded by a citizen of taste sometime around 2001 and scavenged with the thought that one day they would prove useful. Well my friends, that day has arrived.

Stat-Tasticks! July 13th 2009 Measurement Roundup

Howdy pardners! Today we’re gonna rustle up some measurements! Yeehaw. So getcher graduated cylinders and yer plumbobs and lets round up them significant figures. Whoooo Doggy!

I always thought that I was 5'9". I was living a lie. How is it I was able to maintain this deception for 30 years?

I always thought that I was 5'9". I was living a lie. How is it I was able to maintain this deception for 30 years?

Height

Time to drop the cow poke affectation and get down to business.

Height: 68″

First off, how is it that nobody has ever told me I’m kind of short? 5’8″? I’m not even going to include the 1/8th. That’s like adding insult to injury. Who measures things in eighths? This was a crushing blow to my self esteem, and I haven’t fully recovered. I’m dictating this from a medieval rack, hoping to remedy the situation. But while that’s going on, let’s move on to what the scale had to say.

Curse you scale. Couldn't you tell me sweet sweet lies?

Curse you scale. Couldn't you tell me sweet sweet lies?

Weight

This news isn’t much better.

Weight: 177
Body Fat %: 20
Total Body Water%: 55.9

The scale uses simple bioelectrical impedance to guesstimate body fat percentage, and the percentage of water weight. It does this by shooting electricity up through the bottoms of your feet and seeing how much your body resists the current. It’s apparently not the most accurate method. But seeing as how I don’t have a giant tank to submerge myself in, and I haven’t quite figured out the calipers yet, it’ll have to do for now. As an approximate value I’m satisfied for now, even if I’m not thrilled with the result.

Mathematical rigor and flashes of flesh to titilate and amuse.

Mathematical rigor and flashes of flesh to titillate and astound.

Everything Else!

Now for the real meat and potatoes of this post. Mmmm… meat and potatoes. Where was I? Oh, right. I measured myself here, I measured myself there, I measured this rascal everywhere! Here’s the skinny on the fatness:

Head: 22.5
Neck: 15
Shoulders: 43
Chest: 37
Bicep: 12
Elbow: 10.5
Wrist: 7
Belly: 36.5
Waist: 36
Butt: 40.5
Thigh: 22
Knee: 15.5
Calf: 15.5
Ankle: 10

There exist in nature a few golden mathematical ratios that seem to be embedded into the very fabric of life. One is the Fibonacci Sequence, which defines the Golden Spiral which we see in everything from snail shells to great works of art and architecture. My body’s design instead draws on the classic Beige Oblong, a ratio that also governs the noble pear, the stoic matryoshka doll, and the mighty Barbapapas.

Don’t believe me? Do the math! b2y2 = x3(a-x)

An updated progress photo. Not much different from the last one. Let's still call this one... "Before".

An updated progress photo. Not much different from the last one. Let's still call this one... "Before".

Yikes! What hath God wrought? Oh, it’s me. Obviously there has not been a lot of progress since last time. I guess this is a pretty good impetus to get moving.

Oh hey, I still haven’t named the food fetus that I’m carrying. Any thoughts on what the little tyke should be called?

Guess what? All of these measurements are also available for your viewing pleasure on Google Docs! You can find them all in a spreadsheet (here).

When are you Due? Photos of the Food Fetus.

It’s about time for some hot photo action. Let’s call this the “before” picture. You’ve got to have one, right. After snapping these, I noticed that the bloatation of my belly sort of resembles a pregnancy bump. For this reason I will be thinking of my stomach not as swollen with fat and guts, but instead stretched with the gift of life.

In the great tradition of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I have chosen to carry my baby to term

In the great tradition of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, I have chosen to carry my baby to term.

I haven’t thought of a name for the food fetus yet. Any thoughts?