Monday, November 23, 2009

The 12 Pounds Mystery

AFTER doing my regular workout yesterday afternoon, I checked my weight using the bathroom scale and was pleased to find out that I'm once again down to 176 pounds from my usual 180 pounds reading.  I was anticipating a heavy dinner in the evening and so I felt that I had to lose some weight just to stay within my current average weight.

So I left home, met my date at 6 pm, promptly had dinner at around 6:30, pigged ourselves on Italian food at Napoli's, had coffee at Starbucks and got home at 11 pm.  I chatted with the same girl on Yahoo Messanger until 6am today before sleep overtook me.

I woke up at around 10:30 am and went straight to the bathroom.  After doing the number 1, I once again stepped on the bathroom scale expecting that I would get a reading of 180 or 182 pounds.

The reading was 164 pounds (!)

It took me around ten seconds to check whether I was reading it correctly, and it was then followed by a surreal befuddlement.

I don't understand it.  My date and I ate food for three people and I'm sure I had eaten a bigger share than she did.  And, I had an absolutely sedentary evening once I got home.  I expected to gain a few pounds and not lose a lot of pounds in one night.

(No, the bathroom scale is not broken.  To check this, I have a set of barbell plates which I weighed using the same bathroom scale and the readings I got were still accurate.)

What adds to the befuddlement is the fact that I feel fine.  I don't feel as if I'm emaciated or dehydrated.  (And rightly so, because I did not deprive myself of food and water.)

So what happened?  I couldn't seem to find a logical explanation for it.  I'm happy to lose weight, but I wonder if I should be panicking.  This magnitude of weight loss is an anomaly.