Question

Suppose you lost 7 pounds during August. At the end of that month, you weighed 139 pounds. Let I represent your initial weight at the beginning of August. a. Write an equation representing this situation. (Hint: Use your formula from Problem \(2 b\) as a guide.) b. Solve this equation for \(I\) to determine your weight at the beginning of the month.

Short answer

Answer: The person's initial weight at the beginning of August was 146 pounds.

Step-by-step solution

Write the equation representing the situation

We know that the person weighs 7 pounds less at the end of the month than they did at the beginning. We can represent this with the following equation: \(I-7 = 139\)

Solve the equation for \(I\)

To solve for \(I\), we need to isolate it on one side of the equation. So we simply add 7 to both sides of the equation to remove the -7 from the left side, which gives us: \(I = 139 + 7\)

Calculate \(I\)

Now, we can perform the addition on the right side and find the value of \(I\): \(I = 146\) At the beginning of August, the person weighed 146 pounds.