Sorry, Mike, but I seem to have misplaced most of those 13 pounds you asked me for. I’m down nine more pounds in the last three or so weeks. A week gorging myself in California oddly enough always seems to drop five or so pounds. Then I spent a week not eating much at all thanks to the plague that struck my family. Now I’m back more or less on track and am down to 189 after a two-week absence from the gym. The once-thought-unattainable college weight is four pounds away. Oddly, I think I’m still technically obese or borderline obese. I’d like to get my body mass index down to a reasonable range, and so my new goal is to drop to 170ish.

Don’t worry, I’m not wasting away or anything. I still have a pretty substantial girdle of fat around my midsection along with some fat I’m paring slowly away from my upper arms that I think will account for most of that. Once I hit or get fairly close to my goal, it’ll be all about maintaining and not about losing anymore.

That’s a 51 pound drop since September 3, when I began chronicling my weight loss. I’ve lost more than 20% of my body since then. That’s two toddlers, or a third of an average-sized man. I’m four-fifths the man I used to be.