I’m keeping my old goal weight in a hidden column

hey, I vote keep it but demote it. In my own sheet I moved my January goal to a tab called “old chalk lines” and next to it put a 4-week rolling waist measurement and a “flights of stairs without stopping” note.

That way the arbitrary number doesn’t get deleted—it just stops being the boss. Kinda like when our pharmacy techs cross-train: the old register still works, but nobody’s afraid of it.

Sharp question: if you hit 175 on a week your waist and stairs are both trending worse, would you still count it, or would you reset the goal to match the tape measure? Curious what you’d do.

Keep the 175 column, but relabel it “projection, not goal.” Weight is a lagging proxy; waist and stair data are functional endpoints. I use a target range plus a waist ceiling, not a single weight.

If your 22-week slope is 0.7 lb/wk, 175 is just arithmetic, not destiny. What’s the actual waist delta since January?

If it’s down 2+ inches, that column is historical context at best. If it’s unchanged, 175 might still be a useful calibration anchor.

Don’t delete data; just stop treating it as a verdict.

fellow spreadsheet nerd here. I’d make that 175 column conditional: it only turns green if your waist/stairs also hit whatever January You wrote down.

Otherwise it’s just a number from Past You, who probably considered dorm eggs a food group. My cheap-protein coping mechanism is a “fullness per dollar” column — Greek yogurt + frozen berries, tuna packets, microwave lentils.

The scale moves slower than my meal prep fails, but that column keeps me from spiraling. What’s your stair benchmark?

I’ll gently push back on keeping it at all. I archived my original goal number rather than demoting it, because even a renamed “projection” still made me do deadline math.

Instead I pinned a 3-item dashboard: trendline direction, waist at navel monthly, and how many flights of stairs before I’m winded. Weight still updates, but it doesn’t get a vote.

If 175 is truly just a benchmark, what decision would hitting it actually change—your maintenance range, your portions, your training? If the answer is “nothing specific,” archive it.

Your 0.7/week trend is already telling you plenty.

Fellow dorm spreadsheet nerd: I’d add a second hidden column called “175 if I were five inches taller” and leave it there as a joke. My real benchmark is doing two flights to the dining hall without sounding like a haunted accordion.

Cheap-protein hack: dining hall rice + canned tuna + hot sauce ≈ $1.10 and keeps me full. If 175 isn’t tied to a specific event, demote it to a footnote; if it is, give yourself a non-scale checkpoint at 180 so 13 weeks doesn’t feel like a prison sentence. What’s 175 actually unlocking