Today I reached an important milestone in my carnivore diet journey. I woke up bleary-eyed and shuffled my way to the bathroom to hop on the scale, just as I have done every morning for the past month. It read: 317.5.

I had to keep from squealing and waking up my husband. Why am I so excited at the sight of such an artery-clogging number?

According to a random BMI chart I found online, I have crossed the threshold from super obesity to morbid obesity.

This achievement is extraordinary.

Start dates are meaningless

Like thousands of other Americans, I committed to losing weight in 2025. Let's be honest, when it comes to weight loss there is nothing special about starting the journey on a particular date. Dates are arbitrary.

Nevertheless, on January 1st my scale read: 337.8.

I actually breathed a sigh of relief because for me, this was a relatively low number, especially after the holiday season. It certainly was not the highest weight I had ever seen.

BMI is contextual

My fancy scale also calculates my BMI, which I never really cared about previously. BMI is an index the medical industry uses that doesn't actually tell you anything meaningful without context.

My BMI was 53.0.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the number on a BMI chart and according to the version I was using, at over 50.0 I was categorized as super obese. This classification is also known as Class III Obesity. Thankfully, I was not in the super-super category (BMI > 60).

Did dietitians just run out of superlatives or creativity? What does super-super mean, and how is it different from super?

I've always had a positive association with the word, like super hero, super star, super duper-- but not now. I was scared.

In that moment, I endeavored to lose between 150 and 190 pounds.

Metrics can be mileposts

Weight and BMI are just pieces of a whole slew of calculations used by the medical community. Like diet start dates, the obesity categories seem arbitrary. If you research BMI charts, you'll discover several that all classify obesity differently.

However meaningless these categories seem, they do provide one with mileposts to stick in the ground along the journey. Frankly, I just want to reach the magical threshold so that my doctors (who live by those metrics) won't tell me I'm going to die anymore.

The carnivore diet community advocates getting rid of the scale altogether. I'm in the small minority who believe that it can be a helpful tool in measuring progress. Perhaps that's the statistician in me.

With a massive weight loss goal, I decided to carve a path littered with mini-milestones to keep me on track. Some of them are BMI thresholds, and others are more personal, like the weight I was when I got married.

The first goal was obvious: Exit the super obese category.

I will not be out of the morbidly obese classification (or completely out of Class III Obesity) until I reach 255 pounds, which is difficult for me to imagine. Thankfully, my mileposts will keep me grounded until I get there.

The path forward

Carnivore is easier to follow than I imagined, and it cuts the "food noise" the way I suppose GLP-1's do for many people. It is the tool that has given me the most hope that I will reach my goals.

On January 1st, I wrote "318" on a post-it and stuck it below my computer monitor so I was faced with my micro-goal every day. This morning, I removed it ceremoniously and wrote today's date on it. Now, a note scrawled with "299" sits in its place.

I'm Morbidly Obese, and I'm Thrilled

I reached an important weight loss milestone today. I'm out of the super obese BMI category.

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