Weigh-Ins and There's Always a Story

I owe you an update.

Last week, when I weighed in just before getting on a plane to Detroit to visit my mother-in-law, and two good friends who just had a baby, I was even from the week before.

Confession: In Detroit, I didn't even track. I wasn't stuffing my face like I have in the past, but I was not in a great tracking mindset. It was such a wasted opportunity, since I was able to be in charge of all the cooking - which I love - so I could have made a really WW friendly vacation. Instead I made mac and cheese. Ah well.

This past week I was up by half a pound, not bad considering what I'd anticipated.

This week, so far, is going much better. I'm back in the tracking mindset and paying attention to my points.

I don't know why I've been having such a tough time. However, the difference between this and other times is that I'm still trying, still getting back on track. And there has been progress! I'm still down 7 pounds from when I started, and that's something. I just need to keep going and keep doing the best that I can.

For any weight loss thing, there's always a success-in-spite-of-it story. "Oh, you gained your first three weeks? I gained my first four weeks, but then I lost 50 pounds and got fit." "This is your 4th time joining Weight Watchers? No worries, I joined 5 times. That fifth time has been continuing for a years now, and I'm well into my maintenance mode."

That applies to life too. "Oh yeah, that guy switched careers at 45 and he's blissfully happy."

Why? Because it's not about whatever the "thing" was, it's just because the person didn't give up after it. I imagine 100% of successful people have that. I can be one of them. "Oh you see-sawed for your whole teens and twenties? Me too, but then I finally took it all the way home."

Weigh-In: BirthDAY, not week

Alright, let’s dive right into this.

This week’s weigh-in:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/31	1/14	1/28	2/4	2/11
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	177.2	175.8	174.6	175.8	174.2
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	67.1	67.6	65.3	66.8	64.7
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	63.9	65	64.4	65.2	63.5

Well, I’m glad last’s week gain is gone, along with another half pound - and the fat numbers match the net weight numbers, so at least that half a pound was fat lost and not muscle or water. I was hoping for more, of course, since this means I’ve lost just half a pound in two weeks of eating well and working out. It’s been a good few weeks of consistent workouts, actually bringing lunch to work, and staying within my calorie range.

This means that I will definitely not make my goal of getting into the 160’s by my birthday. I knew it was a tall order based on my history, but I really thought it was doable and I’m extremely disappointed that I didn’t make it. New goal: I’m going to try and do it by the end of February, but that might be a long shot as well.

The upside is that I’m not going to do anything about it; I realize that I have no choice. I can keep trying and know it will eventually catch up, or - what? Give up and gain back 25 pounds? Can’t, nope. So onward we ride. Weight loss is definitely like riding a bike at a really low gear - you pedal and pedal, so quickly, but move so slowly.

Because confidence is key.

Upcoming challenges:

Birthday - My plan for my birthday on Tueday is to have a maintenance day and treat it as its own one-day week. I know it’s probably not worth eating so much that the calories spill over onto another day, so I’ll try my best. Bottom line: As long as I keep it to birthDAY, there’s only so bad it can be.

Wedding - we have a wedding of a family friend next weekend (yay!), which will also involve a weekend at my parent’s house. It should be too challenging, but I’ve learned that I don’t do great out of my comfort zones of work, home, and occasional outings. It won’t be hard to eat healthy with my parents, as they eat very well, I just have to watch portion sizes and do my best at the wedding.

Things that are not challenges: Valentine's Day, because I don't really care about it. Our wedding anniversary is my Valentine's Day. The upside is that everything is discounted on my actual birthday because it's on the 17th. Woot!

Weigh-In: How to Define Weight Loss

Happy Holidays to everyone! Or you’re like me and thrilled that it’s almost over.

This week’s weigh-in:

	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/6	11/19	12/10	12/17	12/24
Weight	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	179.6	177.6	179	179.2	179.6
Lbs. Fat	82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	70.3	68.1	66.9	68.4	69.5
Lbs. Muscle	67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	65	63.3	64	67.3	68

A little up, but mostly the same. Not what I was expecting, since I had a good week and was expecting to have lost a pound.

Zooming out over the last few months, overall I’ve been frustrated. Things don’t seem to be adding up (or rather, down) and I feel like I’ve been around the same 3-5 pounds for months now.

The upside is that I’ve been tracking my food intake consistently since maybe last February, so I have a lot of information to work with and I don’t just have to sit around and stew in my injustice. This is one of the things that I’m really proud of - I try to track as honestly as possible, even when the last thing I want to do is admit that I ate 500 calories worth of bread at dinner.

The last time I felt this way, that the scale wasn’t reflecting my efforts, was in June when I was 192 pounds.  However, when I added up the numbers, I quickly realized that I had been having way more “maintenance” days than I realized, and in fact my lack of weight loss was perfectly in line with what I was eating.

So before I got too mad at the scale this time around, I knew I need to do some more number crunching to see if I’m actually weighing more than I “should” or it’s all in my head again.

I made one large chart with all measurements from June through the end of last week - net calories and calorie deficit based on an 1800 calorie maintenance level for each day; then I cross-referenced it with weight measurements. So I can figure out what the calories say I should weigh at a certain time, and what the scale actually said.

So here are the results, in sum: Since June, I have eaten about 60,000 fewer calories than I need. Score! Of those 60,000, about 13,000 are from the last ten weeks. That means I theoretically should have lost 17 pounds total by now, and a little under four in the last ten weeks (yeah, October was not a great month).

In reality it’s more like twelve pounds lost overall and two pounds of that in the last ten weeks. Not adding up, so perhaps my frustration is legitimate. But what has changed is the fat - today I have a little over fourteen fewer pounds on my body, and exactly the same muscle mass. In the last ten weeks, I’ve lost about 2-3 pounds of fat. My conclusion is that the fat mass measurements are much more accurate overall than the weight ones. Thus, perhaps I should focus on the fat numbers and have the overall weight be secondary, instead of the other way around? Revolutionary!

I try to keep in mind is that my body is not magic and can’t defy the laws of physics and gravity. If I keep eating at a deficit, I will lose weight and it will all add up. It seems it will be frustratingly, agonizingly slow, but what other choice do I have?

The other thing to remember is that even the best estimate, hell, even the nutrition facts on a label are probably going to be off by a bit. With that, the gap between what I do weigh and what I think I should weigh shrinks. Or maybe my body only burns 1750 calories each day, though I’ve been counting it as 1800. I think 17 pounds should be gone, in reality it’s 14 pounds. That’s maybe not so much, in the end.

I still want to get into the 160s by my 26 birthday, which gives me another 7-8 weeks to lose ten pounds. That may not be likely at this point, but I’m going to try to get as close as possible.

The "If" Word and Weight Loss

“If I can lose 40 pounds by next year, I would be really proud of that huge weight loss and would buy a pretty and flattering dress that I never could have worn at my higher weight.” 

“If I lose this weight, I’m going to buy a sexy bathing suit and wear it with confidence.”

“If I don’t have too much stress from switching jobs, I will start going to the gym three times a week.”

These are all things I’ve heard other people say fairly frequently, in Weight Watchers meetings, weight loss forums, or just average conversations about dieting. I'm sure I've said them myself. There’s nothing inherently horrible about these statements, of course, but I think there’s something to be said for the constant use of “if."

Similarly, I’ve found myself speaking with qualifiers when referring to weight loss, using words like "if," "hopefully," "maybe," or "perhaps." But I’ve realized that this is, in in a minor but real way, negatively influencing the attitudes I have about my own ability to accomplish things. Why if? All of this weight stuff is in my control; whether I weigh fifty pounds less or ten pounds more next year, it will all have been my doing.

My old Plan B.

Saying “if” (and similar words) can work as a safety net or a form of self-deprecation. 

Sometimes it stems from simple doubt. When I’m uncertain about or don’t trust my own chances of success, when the idea of a fifty-pound loss feels more like a fantasy than a possibility, I’m not going to speak confidently about my plans. I’ll say things like, “I hope that next year I’ll have lost 50 pounds,” or, “if this works, I’ll make sure to keep on the program.” I won’t say, “when I lose this weight,” because deep down I am not sure it will really happen.

Using qualifiers like “if” is also a safety net because if I don’t lose the forty pounds, or whatever the goal is, then I didn’t really fail because I never really said I could do it anyway. The "I never care about it anyway" defense, introduced in school playgrounds everywhere. The more heart I put into something, the more disappointing the failure. 

Thus I’ll avoid that whole hypothetical scenario by never really believing I can do it in the first place, and expressing that doubt through statements that begin with “if” and, “I wish” or, “I hope.” So nobody needs to remember my grand declarations about working out at 5 am each day or only eating sweets on Thursdays, because there won’t be any.

It also works as self-deprecation when speaking to others. I don’t want to sound full of myself, like I’m so sure of my success that I’m buying smaller clothes or planning a post-goal weight vacation. Weight loss is a huge and difficult accomplishment, but it’s something at which most people fail. Therefore, I say “if” to avoid sounding conceited - like someone who is so sure they can succeed where most don't.

But it’s so unnecessary. There’s nothing wrong with speaking confidently about something that, while difficult, is completely attainable and utterly in my control. I’m probably not going to start filling a “goal weight” closet, but I can do this small thing; I can be positive and try to get into a better mindset, one in which I’m confident about my capability.

A study or two has shown that optimism can actually help with weight loss - people who set higher weight loss goals and declared higher confidence in those goals lost more weight. The researchers hypothesized that the attitude helped people to see the weight loss as attainable, even inevitable.

From now on, for things like this - things completely possible and totally in my control - I will start saying “when.” If (when?) I slip up on this, feel free to let me know. But it’s a habit I want to form.

When I get to goal, when I weigh less than 150, when I lose all the weight, when I'm in maintenance mode, when, when, when. Why not? The only thing stopping me is me.