I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where I am in my weight loss journey. I’ve been thinking about what my plans are and how often to weigh myself. Really, I’ve been thinking about everything. I think some of that comes from the fact that I have read the first couple years of this blog and I saw where I was, I saw the struggles I saw the success. I had incredible success. I lost between 130 and 150 pounds of weight. I felt spectacular. However, I regained weight. Let’s be honest, I regained a lot of weight. Right now I’m looking at roughly 65 pounds to lose in order to get back to my lowest weight. It could be worse, I could have gone back to where I was at the beginning… Or even worse, I could’ve gone back to the beginning and then added another 30 pounds. So all is not lost (gained). Even more importantly.... I can go back to all of those old posts and all of my memories and see where the problems started. I can see where the problems occurred and by recognizing the problem, hopefully I can avoid the pitfalls. So what am I planning on doing differently? And are my plans really working? For the last month or two I have been preaching ‘live’. I don’t want to live a life of restriction. I don’t want to live a life of ‘never having an indulgence.’ I want to find that balance where I can be in a healthy place yet not feel so restricted. So where am I?
I got really serious about losing in early June. But I continued to struggle until the middle of the month. And at that point my weight was 254.6. This week I have seen as low as 246.8 on the scales. (Yesterday) That’s 7.8 pounds. Now my official weight this morning was... but that is ok, I know I ate a meal that was higher in sodium last night.
Daily Weigh In
I weighed myself every day back when I lost the bulk of my weight. Early on in my journey, I didn’t weight myself daily. And in early posts, I wrote about how I was so stressed when I didn’t weigh myself because I was fearful of not knowing how I was doing. Because of that, I started weighing myself every day. Over the next 8 to 10 years, I stayed on track for the most part with weighing daily. And I noticed something? Whenever I was weighing daily, I typically stayed on track with my eating....when I didn’t weigh daily I kinda gave myself a ‘pass’ from good food choices also. So I knew I want to continue this behavior. I got to thinking the other day when a friend emailed me and talked about maybe giving up the daily weigh in. I respect this friend’s opinion greatly so I really decided to give this one some thought. She brought up the fact that I seem to get discouraged when my weight is up a bit. And this is true. I readily admit it! So do I need to weigh daily? Yes, for me..yes. I know that not weighing for me gives me that freedom of thought that ‘I can be bad..I have until my weigh in day!’ But the daily fluctuations...that is the issue I need to overcome.
So how can I manage to overcome those daily fluctuations? I honestly think that I have been going in the right direction in my though processes over the last few weeks. I’ve been talking more about a ‘range of weight’. In that post I wrote about accepting my weight as long as it is within three pounds of my lowest observed weight. If I am ‘living’ the. I know that my weight will fluctuate because some days my eating and exercise will be spot on...but some days one or the other (or both) will be haywire because I’ll be living and accepting life as it comes my way. So I will be ok with the lazy Saturday where no run, bike ride or hike occur and we instead sit on the couch watching movies all day long. I will also be ok with the ice cream indulgence during the hellishly hot days if the summer. Let me rephrase...I will be ok as long as I am within three pounds of my lowest recently recorded weigh.
This plan is solid. I’ve read a few blogs where people have been doing something similar. And most recently I read a blog about maintenance where she posted a graph showing what ‘maintenance’ looks like. While I’m not in maintenance mode..yet. The post really hit me...because yes I’m in losing mode and losing mode has two purposes. One of is obviously to lose. But the second and possibly even more important goal of this stage, learning to live healthy and practice for weight loss maintenance. Her post showed that there are fluctuations daily. And she is still slowly working on a few pounds here and there...just shifting that ‘range’ down further a little at a time.
So I think I’m in the right path. The biggest thing is just retraining my mind to not be upset about the fluctuations. As long as my bottom number keeps inching downward I’m happy!!! This slow method may take more time, but I will be so much better prepared and equipped to handle maintenance!
Furthermore, when I share my ‘official weight’ I will be sharing my ‘low weight’ for the week and giving the acceptable weight range. So for example. If my lowest weight for the past 7 days was 245.0 pounds I would say that my official weight was 245 with my acceptable weight range up to 248 pounds.
So where I am I weight wise?
I got really serious about losing in early June. But I continued to struggle until the middle of the month. At that point my weight was 254.6. Earlier this week my weight popped way high with no reason...but then the next day dropped right back down once again with no reason. I struggled...(which is what brought about these deep thoughts on where I’m at and what I’m doing). Today I stepped on the scales... 245.4....I’m in awe...I’m in shock. I’m ecstatic! That is 10.2 pounds GONE since mid June!!! So my weight 245.4. And I will be ok with the scales up to 248.4 to account for those daily fluctuations!!
Eating
This is a big one for me. I know I need to limit my carbs. I know that I need to limit my sweet treats. I also know that the snack when I get home from work needs to go away unless it really is a true hunger that is driving me to the kitchen for that snack. Notice I’m not eliminating anything totally. I did the elimination thing once before...and I had amazing success! It works! It also failed me! Just look at my current picture and you can see it failed!
(Not exactly current but I don’t have current full body shots...I have lots of chest up pics though...selfies! So this March 2018 picture will have to suffice)
I found out the hard way that did me, living a life of restriction, for the rest of my life is not sustainable. When I was losing the first time I was frequently asked ‘is this sustainable, can you live like this forever.’ I was gung ho and said ‘yes, of course’. You see, I was in control. As long as I didn’t indulge I was fine, strong and capable. However, the first time I got the taste of cake and desserts (on a vacation and at a wedding) I lost control. Big time loss of control. It had been such a ‘taboo’ thing in my life that when I finally did say ok to the food, I went crazy! I don’t want anything in my life to be taboo. (Ok within reason...some things in life should always be taboo...drugs, etc...but I’m talking food here, not those extremes!). There is a fine line of balance between indulging and gluttony. There is a fine line of balance between being in control and going off the rails crazy (either dieting or eating like a fool). There is a fine line of balance between living a healthy lifestyle that is sustainable and one that will eventually crash and burn. I have already crashed and burned once. I don’t plan on doing that again. So that means that I have to find that fine line of balance.
The balance for me? For a few weeks I made desserts for Jason, but didn’t touch them (I had maybe one piece of rice crispy treats out of three batches that were made in a two-three week period...yeah he is on a rice crispy treat kick!). Then one week I made cookies...my all time favorite (chocolate peanut butter banana cookies). And I indulged. The no/limited dessert weeks, I lost. The indulge weeks maybe not as much...more like a maintain. Balance...this goes hand in hand with the weigh in section above....I just need to retrain my mind to accept the indulgent weeks...
Scales are Stupid
The biggest thing I need to retrain myself to remember is that there are fluctuations in the scale. Some fluctuations are caused by indulgences. Some fluctuations are caused by carb intake. Some fluctuations are caused by water intake or lack there of. Some fluctuations are hormonal. I need to remember that the fluctuations are NORMAL as long as I’m within that range of weight that I have allowed myself.
And just to prove how stupid the scales are? Ironically my weight was really high this week on Tuesday for no reason....I got home from work and made the heavenly chocolate peanut butter banana cookies and my weight dropped the next day...and the day after to my all time low today, even though I ate cookies each day. Which does prove that scales are stupid or maybe they are magical cookies.......
