Doing the Math.

I sent a link to this blog to one of my many sisters today.

She's a brilliant woman. An engineer for over twenty years, and a gifted writer, though she'll never confess to that last claim. Apparently one's ability to herd a few words doesn't garner much respect in the heavily masculine, heavily mathematical, logical-sequential world of designing bull dozers.

Anyway, her immediate response was no surprise. "You need some graphs and charts," she wrote, "so we can follow your progress."

As one of the few in my family who didn't end up in a field with strong mathematical and scientific underpinnings, I always get a chuckle out of the immediate need for logical, data-rich communication amongst my siblings and in-laws. Family gatherings are sometimes a bit like math and science conventions, with pocket protectors and calculators appearing frequently and the occasional conversation taking place only in binary code.

Okay, it's not quite that bad. Close, but not quite.

So, in response to my sister's clear need for more math, I emailed her the following story problem:

In search of breakfast, Nichole plunges her head, face first into a chocolate cake, accidentally consuming 1500 calories in fudge frosting in the process. How many times does she have to fall off her treadmill in order to burn off those calories??

She didn't appreciate the humor. Or the math. Especially since there is no good way to calculate the calorie burning potential of treadmill gaffes.

Anyway, for those of you who are data driven, I will work on getting the charts and graphs. For now, I've got as many charts and graphs as I can handle with my use of Weight Watchers online. Plenty of data tracking there.

I'll close with a few facts, just to satisfy the number nerds among you.

Number of minutes I've tortured the albatross* today: 20
Pounds lost to date: 11, give or take a few ounces
Number of Weight Watchers points in the beet & black bean brownie I had for breakfast: 6

What can I say about the brownie? Some habits die hard.

* See previous post entitled "Sweat."