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Saturday, September 13, 2014

Weekly Weigh-In and Cutting Out Sugar

I can’t believe it’s Saturday; this week has definitely flown by. Partially motivated by my sister-in-law’s visit and wanting to actually feed her, I made dinners during this past week and had leftovers every day. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all the same leftovers for lunch - One-Pot Chicken Lo Mein. Easy and delicious. Thankfully, she doesn’t care about junk food, so she didn’t mind that we didn’t have any.


This week’s weigh-in, from Wednesday.


June 8thAugust 4thAugust 12thAugust 19thAugust 26thSeptember 3rdSeptember 10th
Weight191.2184183182.6181.4182.8182
Pounds of Fat82.774.570.472.571.87371.7
Pounds of Muscle 67.368.266.466.867.367.267.5


I was somewhat surprised and disappointed at this, since my tracking indicates I should be in the 170s already, but it is what it is.


Not at all mad.


Right now, I’m twenty pounds below my highest weight, but I don’t feel much different. Last time - on the way up and the way down - the difference between 170 pounds and 180 pounds was somehow much more noticeable than the first twenty pound loss, which took me from the original 200 down to 180. At 170 pounds, I could wear my fall/winter sweaters comfortably, my face didn’t look bloated, and my dimples were visible.



I am really impatient to get to that point, and even though I’m making progress, I feel like little things along the way have been slowing me down. Those little treats have been making the difference between a three-pound loss every month and a six-pound one: the candies at work, and most frustratingly, a few licks of batter from what I bake each week for our friends.






The last time I felt like this, like I was doing the weight loss 80%, was back in June. Then at 190 pounds, my little extra treats ended up causing my weight to stay the same week after week. Frustrated and realizing that I was doing enough of the work to feel like I was making an effort, but not enough to actually get results, I plunged in, lowered my daily calorie goal, and lost an average of a pound a week for ten or so weeks. Now I feel like I’m stagnating again, letting little treats add up. This time, it’s slowing the weight loss, not preventing it, but still frustrating.


I want to fix that. As an experiment, I’m going to cut out most of the sugar from my diet. I will still have eight grams of sugar in my coffee each morning, and one treat on Sundays with J, but that will be it. I don’t have any interest in cutting food groups out of my life because it’s not realistic, at least for me.

Butter and I hang like, all the time. 


This is similar to when I went on a whole schpiel about default settings - those automatic answers and reactions that we all have for certain questions or situations. My default answer to an offer of food - especially office treats - has been too much “yes” lately. Sure, I track it, but it still affects my day and possibly the changes I'll say "yes" to other temptations.

It’s time to get back. I’ll take this one week at a time. Assuming we go to the gym and I have the calories to spare, I’ll enjoy a 150-400 calorie treat tomorrow. And then it will just be “No, thanks” for the rest of the week. Maybe next week I’ll keep going, maybe I won’t. But that mentality of “I can stop doing this anytime I want” will help me to not feel like I’m being deprived or punished, and that’s not what this is. In fact, it’s the opposite: I’m trying to take the control from the food, and return it to where it belongs.



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