2018 Stats - Weight

Two personal records for 2018: lowest average weight (158.1 lbs) and lowest standard deviation (1.3 lbs). I think it would be interesting to have a "healthy habits" competition measuring lowest weight variability.

Zooming in on the last three years (since I shed about 10 pounds) shows I've settled into a fairly consistent yearly pattern. My weight goes down from July-ish to October-ish, then gradually climbs the rest of the year.

I exercise way more from mid-May to mid-August, and I've figured the lack of weight loss in June and continued weight loss in September were largely attributable to gaining/losing a bit of muscle. Las year I got a scale that ostensibly measure body fat, so I figured I'd test my hypothesis.

The plot below shows a pretty direct relationship between what the scale reports as my weight and body fat. Looking at the most common weight value (156.8 lbs), the body fat readings range from 15.6% - 16.0%. A cluster of the 156.8 lbs data points occur in September, a handful in November, and three more in December. The body fat readings decrease from September to November, and then are at their highest values in December. The decrease in November would seem to be evidence against my hypothesis as I'm certain I was in better shape in September. But I'm guessing the scale's body fat measuring capabilities just aren't accurate enough to capture changes as small as a couple of pounds of muscle.

Some final thoughts: I've long found it persuasive that diet is way more important than exercise as far as weight management is concerned (just by looking at calories burned exercising vs gained by eating), but for me personally it looks like being more active in the summer consistently leads to weight loss. Maybe I'm more motivated to eat better when exercising regularly...who knows? Now to figure out a way to be more consistent year-round.