- One should not reward oneself with a bowl of ice cream after a five-mile walk.
- One should resist the lure of the 10 for $10 Utz Pretzels display.
- One should not let a pulled bicep keep one from going to the gym for an entire week.
The rest of the reason, of course, is that I'm not going to see the right number, based on what I saw yesterday. When I see the 'wrong' number (it's so hard to convince myself it's just information), I can respond in various ways:
- Buckle down, add activity, eat reasonably.
- Totally cave, what's the use, give up, have some chocolate. And ice cream.
- Starve myself, double the daily diuretic, work out like a maniac.
Let's just say I could have done better.
Today is Monday, and I'm sure both of you know what that means in the dieter's life: Fresh Starts! New Beginnings! Today is the first day of the rest of
Ya know what? I'll be 61 next month (May 25, don't forget!) and it makes me sad to know I have spent FIFTY YEARS battling my weight. More than six of those years have been on public record here and back at Shrinking Knitter. I've been at a normal weight for about 15 of the last 50 years, but 10 of them were when I was in school and thought I was as fat as a cow, when I really was normal.
My much younger self was so very critical. My much older self is more willing to cut me some slack, based on my spectacular lack of progress despite mostly consistent effort. Especially these last few blogging years, since my effort has been on display, so to speak.
Today I will be good to myself, not with food, but with physical activity (I'm going to the gym and then to work – my work schedule changed; I'm at Groundworks Mondays instead of Sundays now), healthful food in reasonable portions and lots of water. I will take pictures of flowers (that's today's photo-a-day prompt), and I will be surrounded by beautiful sights and sounds all afternoon.
And I will have my once-in-a-while guilty pleasure between gym time and work time.
How do you handle potentially disappointing scale days? Do you face the music or take a mulligan?
4 comments:
I started obsessing over the scale, so I cut back the weigh-ins to once per month (on the first). If I am a good girl most of the days and continue with it, I cannot not see a loss after a month. Or at least that is the theory. ^^
After doing this for a month and a half, I have already found that I do take way more pride in "living right" - eating good food, exercising regularly, making sure I do what is good for me. The numbers are just not as important anymore.
Diandra, thanks for your comment. I've often thought about going to once a month weigh-ins, but stop myself because I think I would end up FRANTIC during that last week. I would love to be where you are about the numbers not being so important. God, grant me patience, and grant it RIGHT NOW! =)
Scale ... what's that?!? I'd like to say I don't use a scale because I'm so in the zone that I eat right, exercise, and enjoy the results without the "feedback." But truth be told, I don't get on the scale anymore because I know it would be very, very ugly.
After 3 weeks at my mom's house, I know without the scale that I've gained back everything I lost after the Christmas holidays. This is made very obvious by the fact that none of the clothes I brought with me fit right anymore.
Plus, I did jump on the scale at one of the many doctor visits of the last couple of weeks - once with my purse, my mom's purse, and our bag of things to do while waiting for the doctor - and once without.
This confirmed that I had regained all weight lost - and that I'm carrying around 14 lbs of extra non-body weight in addition. All of which makes the extreme pain in my knee make a little more sense. I'm afraid the orthopedist was correct two years ago when he said I was two years away from at least a partial knee replacement... :-(
In other words, regardless of having good incentive to eat right and exercise to avoid all kinds of physical ramifications I still can't quite get it together...
After skipping the scale last Monday (WW at Work) because I couldn't face it; I'm not in a better place this Monday. So I AM going to go face the music. I know that I exercised more this week than in a long time but I also know I didn't keep my eating in check. So I'm going to go record the results and get back to it.
I don't know why it is such a struggle to just do what I know how to do. Magic pill anyone? Not for weight loss but for the attitude and determination to do what you know is the right thing for your health.
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