Scale slave

I'm guilty! For as long as I can remember, I've been a slave to the scale. Recently, when I got back into the groove and decided to lose some weight and get in shape, this slave-scale relationship resurfaced. In the past, I've limited myself to weighing in once a week. I purposely chose Thursdays to weigh myself because it allowed three days to work off any "bad" choices from the previous weekend.

Over the years, I surmised that weighing myself weekly didn't paint an accurate picture of my weight loss efforts. If I went off track on Wednesday for some reason or if I was retaining water, the number would be high and I would be discouraged. Discouragement led to a downward spiral. This time around, I weighed myself daily so that I could keep a more accurate account of my weight loss. I found this method to be more rewarding. I could see the scale moving in a downward trend most days and if it happened to not move, it was easy to accept because I knew that I was still moving in the right direction overall.

This worked for about 10 weeks, when I came within 3 pounds of a weight that I hadn't seen since high school! I was so excited to hit that number. I wanted to lose that last 3 pounds, and then I would allow myself some slack. Then, I plateaued. The scale didn't move for about 10 days. I started getting disappointed. I had been exercising 6 days a week, even twice a day three days a week, and sticking strictly to my 1200 calorie diet plan--foresaking my husband's and son's pleas for the occasional fast food or pizza. I just wanted to get to my goal and then I could have the occasional "treat".

At the peak of my frustration and mounting disappointment at the stationary number on the scale, I was hit with a huge setback. The scale jumped up 4 pounds one day. Ugh! I had been so good! I had been pushing so hard to drop those last 3 and now I was moving in the wrong direction. What happened? I tried not to get too disappointed. I stuck with the program, thinking it was a fluke and the scale would become my friend again over the next few days. Friendly or not, it didn't move. For another week, this new high number stuck with me. I felt utterly defeated and started to consider binging just to spite the scale. (This has been the downfall of most every other weight loss that I've experienced in my life. When the going gets tough, the weak say "poor pitiful me" and eat everything in sight until a feeling of complete disappointment and disgust is achieved.)

Then, I had a breakthrough. I felt good! Why was I putting myself through this misery? When, I started this journey, I purposely did not set a weight loss goal because I was fully aware of my past fateful relationship with the numbers on the scale. My initial goal was merely to fit more comfortably in my jeans. Only when I saw the pounds dropping, did I set the weight goal. So here I was, my jeans not only fitting comfortably, but with a little wiggle room and I'm near depression mode. Over 3 pounds! Seriously?

So, what's a girl to do? Say, "screw the scale". That's what I told Matt my new philosophy was going to be. If I met my goal of fitting into my jeans and I felt better, why should I be so hung up on a number. So, I moved into maintain mode. I let loose a little bit. I started exercising only 5 days a week once a day and allowed myself to eat some not diet-approved foods in moderation.

Then, Halloween arrived. I insisted that Avery needed some chocolate covered raisins and candy corn because those were candies that her four little teeth could handle. Of course, I didn't admit (to myself) that these are two of my favorite types of candy, too! I spent the whole weekend of Halloween pigging out on snack mixes that included lots of healthy nuts and dried fruit, but also chocolate covered raisins and candy corn. Oh, and cookies. In the days leading up to Halloween, I had an urge to bake some pumpkin-shaped iced sugar cookies. So, I was eating plenty of those too.

I vowed to get back into action after the weekend, but an unexpected change of schedule prevented me from exercising for two days and on top of that, I continued my binge of all things unhealthy including polishing off "Avery's" chocolate covered raisins and partaking of the Halloween Oreo's that were 75% off after the holiday.

After my 6-day binge, I decided enough was enough. I'd worked too hard and was afraid I was on a slippery slope. I threw away the last of the candy corn and vowed to get back to business the following morning. I got up early to exercise, but stopped by the scale first just to see where I was. I was hoping not to have gained more than 3 pounds.

I was back down to the original number--the one where I was only 3 pounds from that high school weight! The one that I hadn't seen in more than two weeks! What? How could this be? So, back to my motto of "screw the scale". I'm back to 5-day/week exercise and staying mostly on my 1200 calorie plan with some occasional wiggle room. Get a grip, girlfriend!