Pressing On Despite a Scare

Last week I had a minor upset on weigh day. The scale registered EXACTLY the same number as the week before. It wasn’t a shock because I had fallen off the wagon on the previous Monday when my sister was visiting from Indiana. We went to Casa Gallardo and I ate Enchiladas Rancheras with chips & salsa–definitely not good choices. I went back on Atkins (Induction) the next day and didn’t cheat again all week. I thought it was rather cruel of my body to hold one slip against me, but when the scale hadn’t moved, I said to myself, you deserve this.

It’s strange how one set-back (and it wasn’t even a weight gain) can put me into a funk. I started thinking I’d hit a plateau, even though I knew one week of weight maintenance did not a plateau make. Fitness Hopeful gave me some very good encouragement and advice. She reminded me that eating meals helps prevent temptations because you feel more full when they come along. She also suggested fajitas as a good choice in a Mexican restaurant. I like fajitas. They are a good choice in my book!

The next morning I got up and weighed again, hoping to see some movement in the right direction. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see I was down 1 lb over the previous week’s weight. So, apparently I had some water weight on Monday, which I lost before weigh-in on Tuesday (or maybe my body felt sorry for me.)

This week, I’ve been rebellious. I haven’t wanted to weigh at all, maybe fearing another disappointment, and I haven’t been recording all that I eat in my FitDay food journal. I haven’t taken my walks, which I’d just begun two weeks ago. I just feel weary of the whole process and I think it’s because I have stresses in other aspects of my life and, combined with the diet program, feel overwhelmed. Despite this, I’m not cheating and I have been trying to guzzle the water. I keep reminding myself that the wrong foods will always be there, so there’s no reason to eat them now. I know there’s really no good reason to eat them at all, but it helps me to know that I could if I really wanted to. It’s important to my psyche to feel I am making the choice. I tell myself, if I go back to the old way of eating, I’ll suffer the consequences– weight gain, feeling depressed, feeling tired and heavy all the time, feeling self-conscious, avoiding things I like to do–and currently, those are powerful motivators for me to stay on the program. When a temptation comes along, I ask myself, do you REALLY have to do this now? Couldn’t you wait to cheat until it’s more important to you? You’ll put the whole program at risk and potentially disrupt your progress.

I decided not to weigh myself this week. I may start weighing every two weeks or monthly instead. I don’t want to develop an obsession with the scale, recognizing that healthier eating is a serious objective in all this, too, not just weight loss. But still, I want to see those 100 lbs GONE from the scale on my birthday next year.