Weekly Weigh-In #16

Looks like I triumphed over my early-week gain! I wish I had lost just a little more this week, but I’ve done what I can do. Here are the week’s numbers:

Last Week:163.8
This Week: 162.5
Loss Since Last Week: 1.3
Loss Since January: 20.8

Well, though I was hoping to lose 1.7 again (my WW weigh-in is Sunday though so, you never know what could happen between now and then…) I have officially broken into having lost over 20 lbs. That’s exciting.

I told Chelsea I’ll be more excited when it’s thirty lbs, but progress is progress. Maybe last weekend’s extra noshing made the difference between the 1.3 loss and my more typical 1.7? Who knows.

Either way: more weight gone.

That’s what it’s all about, y’all!

Weekly Weigh-In #12

Hoooo boy, running certainly does assist with weight loss.

I can feel (I mean, I think most women have a sense about this) that I’ve been a little bolted the past few days but the numbers on the scale still went down.

Works for me!

Last Week: 169.3
This Week: 168.2
Loss This Week: 1.1 lbs
Loss Since January: 15.1 lbs

I never include the number of lbs I’ve lost since starting WW in 2011, because I yo-yo-ed a lot the past few years. I think it’s not fair or accurate to say that two years or three years of focused effort resulted in however many lbs of loss — I’ve been working hard since January and this time it’s sticking, so that’s how I count it. It feels disingenuous to count from 2011.

However, if you were wondering, since 2011 I have lost a total of 29.8 lbs.

Anyone who says WW doesn’t work is a liar.

There, I said it.

Now to go celebrate this week’s achievements!

On Average(s)

My new plan is to start averaging my weights throughout the week.

I have a few reasons for doing this:

1) My weight fluctuates quite a bit throughout the week, despite maintaining a VERY even-keel diet all seven days in a row. (I don’t snack, over-eat, eat more on some days/less on others… I am consistent, habitual and predictable Monday through Sunday.)

2) I suspect that water retention to repair muscles during exercise is part of it; there are usually harder runs/workouts near the end of the week, and whenever I visit my mom in Scranton, if i forgo my run for a day or two, I IMMEDIATELY drop two lbs. Food intake unchanging. So I think repairative water retention is in part to blame, which is annoying because water repairing leg muscle isn’t reflected in, say, my waist line but IS reflected on a scale.

3) I’ve hit a point where, you know, I’m doing EVERYTHING right. Working out 6 days a week. Eating within my points. NEVER using my activity points. RARELY using any flex points — maybe using 10 a week out of 49, and leaving my usually 36+ activity points untouched. And so, really, I know that — scale-be-damned — my weight loss is going to continue. And I can’t keep stressing out or keeping myself beholden to a single number on a single day. It’s NOT reflective of my progress; it’s NOT worth stressing over. So we’re going to start measuring me instead, and we’re going to stop being psycho about whether or not weigh-in day will go well. Of course, I will still weigh-in “officially” on Fridays and I AM keeping track of that number; I just don’t want it to be the only measure of my progress.

4) I want to say this for the record, since I KNOW what too many people will try & tell me about “weighing in too often”: SHUT UP. Keep your anxieties to yourself — the scale does not at all make me anxious, whether I weigh in once a day or once a year. It makes me CONFUSED, yes, when I mysteriously gain or mysteriously lose (remember the 4 lb loss in January? WTF.). But it certainly doesn’t make me anxious. In fact, my consistent daily weigh-ins help me pinpoint which life trends add weight or remove it, and how my body processes the stressors and situations it lives through. Without a daily weigh-in, I never would have figured out that there’s definite water-retention from working out that goes away after a rest day or rest weekend? Without a daily weigh-in, I would be horrified at the weeks I randomly gain half a pound — WITH a daily weigh-in, I sometimes know that my belly is just holding onto certain foods, or that I drank a lot of water, etc. So, those weigh-in’s aren’t obsessive or anxiety-laden. I don’t really attach value judgments to any of them. They’re just me, trying to understand what’s up with this body of mine. And if it makes YOU anxious, that’s YOUR problem — not mine.

And so: let the averaging begin.