This year I decided that I was not going to focus so much on the number on the scale that I become obsessed with it. So far I have been doing rather well with that. Of course that is easy to do when you are LOSING consistently. But when you see a gain, even a little one, it is hard to not let it eat away at you.
Last week at my weigh-in I found that I had gained a little weight. The holidays caught up with me, I was lazy about tracking, I didn't drink enough water and basically, I was lazy with staying on track. We all do it. We are human. So I gained .8 of a pound. What got me was that it bumped me back up a number. I think if I had gone from 211 to 211.8 it would not have FELT like a huge gain....but I went from 211.2 to 212. So I saw that "horrible" 212 pounds on the scale it felt like I was seeing 237 pounds again. Now I knew in my head that it was a small gain and that it is expected, especially after holidays and having a harder time getting back on track. But I was "self loathing" over the number on the scale and beating myself up for being lazy. I had to step back and remind myself what my "new year's resolution" was. The truth is that a "thin" person's weight doesn't stay exactly the same all the time. Weight fluctuates. I know because I wasn't always the "fat friend". Weight fluctuates when at a "healthy weight range"....which is why there is a RANGE. So I had to remind myself that my weight was allowed to "fluctuate" as well.
I was within that 2 pound weight fluctuation zone and I just needed to recognize that I was freaking out over .8 of a pound gain coming off of holidays and laziness. I was LUCKY it wasn't 5 pounds. So I got myself straightened out, vented at my Husband and one of my best friends, and pulled myself together. Let's face it, when I get to "goal" my weight is going to fluctuate. I can't be freaking out and suddenly turning to starving myself or diet gimmicks because the NUMBER on the scale went up .2 of a pound. What a miserable way to live my life. Constantly focused on the scale. Constantly worried about what EVERYTHING will look like on the scale. I need to correct that obsessive behavior and allow myself some freedom to be human, to enjoy my life and my loved ones, celebrate on special occasions and enjoy the yummy food my chef brother makes (when I get to)....otherwise I will be "thin" and "healthy" but I will not be any happier.
The Friday after that horrible weigh-in, I had surgery to remove 3 of my extra wisdom teeth. MAN is that miserable after 25 years of age......I'm 34. :-) The oral surgeon said that my recovery time will be longer, more painful and the swelling will be greater than the "average" person's. Partly because of my age but also because of the teeth I had removed. They were difficult to remove, one left a small hole in my sinus cavity which had to be stitched up, and because they were so impacted my body felt like it was being attacked and my lymph nodes became so swollen I looked like Droopy Dog and Quasimodo had a baby and I was it. lol I have been on massive pain medications since last Friday, "no chew" foods.....yogurt, protein shakes, apple sauce, pudding, sherbet, jello and pureed soups. Being gluten free though, the soups are a hard one......but it was the only way to get vegetables in me without actually turning to "baby food".
At first I was so swollen that the scale was weighing me at numbers I haven't seen in MONTHS. Ben (husband) kept telling me that I was so swollen it was the retained water it was weighing. I accepted that and returned to bed. But as the week dragged on, the scale read 218.6 and I FREAKED. I really did. I felt like this really wasn't fair. Here I was barely eating, because not only did my food have to be "no chew" but I was becoming SO sick of eating the same thing over and over....Plus the pain medications make me not hungry at all. I just drink a ton of water and tea. When I tracked my points plus, which I'm supposed to eat 30 a day, I was barely getting 20. But I wasn't hungry, I wasn't any more tired than anyone else would be recovering from surgery....but still 218.6. It felt like a death sentence. Why am I even bothering?!? Why do I even try?!? Ben "slapped me silly" (not really) and got me to refocus on just healing. I did some massage and warm compresses for the lymph nodes, I drank more tea and water and sure enough, within a day or two the swelling had gone down and the scale was a more "normal" number.
Yesterday would have been my "normal' weigh-in day. Ben and I decided that I wasn't going to go because until all the swelling goes down, I will feel like it isn't my "true weight". BUT, you KNOW I weighed in at home. My scale yesterday said 210....which would mean that I had lost 2 pounds since last week's .8 gain. However, this morning my scale said 209.8 a number I haven't seen since probably 2010. I will probably be going to a meeting tomorrow morning to get my official "weigh-in" for the week though. It might not be my "true" number since I'm still fairly swollen, but it will still be down...which will help me stay on track. NEXT week I should be pretty much down to normal puffiness so that weight would be my "true" weight for that week.
One good thing I noticed from having my wisdom and supernumerary teeth removed and having to eat a very restricted diet (I'm still on that by the way......still can't eat "normal" food) is that it has snapped me back to reality of portions, food choices and when I'm REALLY hungry. So, today is back to tracking.....even my barely eating because of surgery.....tracking tracking tracking. And as soon as I have my appointment next week with my oral surgeon and he says it is ok, I'm going to get back on my stationary bike. I would love to be down under 200 or at least hit 200 by Valentine's Day.
The moral of the story is: give yourself room to be human and enjoy life. Your weight is going to fluctuate some, let it. Give yourself the room to breathe and enjoy all that it has to offer. If you falter, get back up, and start again. It isn't a competition with anyone else. It is about finding your worth in something other than a number on a scale, the size of a pair of jeans or how many chins you have. It isn't about eating your feelings away, stuffing your face to "get back at them" or about seeing how little food you need to survive. It is about giving yourself the same grace you give to others. It is about finding beauty in yourself when you see it the least. And it is CERTAINLY about allowing yourself to feel the success of a smaller pair of pants without beating yourself up about how little the scale actually moved to get there.
A step forward, no matter how small it might be, is STILL a step towards your goal.
"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everyone on the couch."
No comments:
Post a Comment