Weight Loss Ups & Downs

Today, I'm feeling discouraged. Okay, I know it isn't actually logical. I can look at my weight-loss progress, and see I'm ahead of schedule for my goal, my body is feeling better, and yesterday I fit into a dress a friend had gotten me, but had never fit. It isn't often I have a mood like I do today, and I can actually feel my mood yo-yoing. I'm battling my own self talk.

How am I going to choose to battle this today? I'm going to bring the Lord to the battle first, by getting into scripture, and spending time with Him. Then I'm going to remind myself of the success I've had so far, and keep my eye on the prize. I'm going to take control of these emotions that are making me feel discouraged, and frankly a bit depressed.

I'm not feeling like doing that, but I am not going to let my emotions drive this train. I am having a bit of a plateau, and I know that is normal. I weigh myself everyday, and I know our weight fluctuates, and most of the time I'm content to just wait and actually record my weight when it has gone down, but it has been a few days, and I guess I was hoping for it to continue to go down. On top of that, yesterday wasn't a great day.

I'm going to give myself credit though, my not great day is nothing like even a normal day used to be. On Sparkpeople my daily calorie intake goal is between 1200-1550. I like to stay between 1200-1300, but I don't always succeed. Yesterday I felt out of control of my eating. I went out of town with my hubby, and I didn't really plan. We bought some protein bars on the way out of town, and a bag of air popped popcorn. I do eat bars as part of my normal routine, but not usually two fuelings in a row. So, I think I felt deprived. I ended up binging half the bag of popcorn. In the end, my calorie intake was 1566. I felt out of control, but I guess it ended up working out okay.

The good news, I got a new swimsuit in the mail yesterday, and I'm very happy with it. It is comfortable, I look good in it, and it fits well. The best part? I bought a size smaller than before, and it fits fine. I probably could go even one more size down. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can actually just shop in normal stores, not just online for clothing.

I apologize if this reflects my up and down feelings, but I want to be real, and this is really where I'm at today. As Scarlett would say, "After-all, tomorrow is another day."

Wow! Victorious Breakthrough

I was stressing about a number, and my past experiences with that number. The number was 330, a place I've plateaued several time. I really believe drinking 64 oz. of water before eating, and within the first half hour after waking up, have helped me break through this typical plateau. Today, I weighed in at 329, that puts me at 34lbs lost, only 3 lbs away from having lost 10% of my body weight. I'm really excited about how things are going.

Further great news, everyone in my family has lost weight. My hubby has lost about 20lbs, I'm not sure what my oldest daughter has lost, but her prom dress was too big, and she had to go with a different one because she had lost weight, and the youngest wouldn't weigh herself when we began, but since she has noticed a real change she is weighing herself now. We had been keeping our bathroom scale under the sink, none of us really wanted to know what it said, but now it is out in the bathroom and we all weigh in frequently.

Okay, so I'm excited about scale breakthroughs, but I have to tell you, I try not to obsess with the number on the scale. I'm being honest, if I step on the scale, and I don't like the number, I don't track it. In other words my weigh ins look far between when I'm plateauing. It is a mind set that the number I don't like is not permanent, and tracking it would make it permanent. 

So, non-scale victories: yesterday I walked quite a bit around downtown and it wasn't terribly strenuous like it used to be, and I stayed on plan yesterday, even with eating out and having a busy day of meetings. Perhaps tomorrow I will talk about eating out strategies that work for me.  Also, yesterday I got to wear this great dress that I had bought a few months back at the thrift store. I really like it, and it makes me feel sassy. Finally, a huge non scale victory yesterday, I have a denim jacket that I bought quite a while ago, but it never completely buttoned, yesterday I was able to button it, easily. Now how is that for sassy! (Below is the sassy dress, not on the same day, but....)