Scale Saturday: Week 3

If you're as burned out of these posts as I am, feel free to scroll on past and disregard. :) For those who want a play-by-play account of how my diets progress...there's probably enough drama here to rival an episode of The Biggest Loser. The thought that one person might see my poor scale results is enough at times to make me put down the fork or pass on the sugar.

I was excited to write this post...until Thursday, that is. I was doing great, down a respectable 2 more pounds this week already by Monday. And then a strange thing happened. Though I lowered my calories each day, and consumed a mere 890 calories Wednesday, each morning at weigh-in I found I had gained weight. 6 ounces here, 4 ounces there. I was even jogging half a mile a day and walking for an hour. I was up a pound by Thursday, but at least still down a pound from my check-in last week.

It's time for a binge. My body thinks it's starving so it's hoarding calories. Fight fire with fire.

I fried a pound of bacon and four eggs. Sauteed an onion in butter, and melted cheese on everything. Assembled between two pieces of bread with a generous layer of sweet chili ranch smothering it like a spicy blanket of love, this masterpiece rivaled the options at the Heart Attack Grill. Not one to shirk accountability, I even measured and kept track of calories as it took shape. It weighed in at whopping 1709 calories. Oh yes, I was over my calorie limit by 500 calories before 10 am. My stomach still does not feel right since eating it, and I had to pass off the second sandwich I made to Gavin (who ate it in its entirety and then proclaimed he was still hungry. That boy.) I realize that a normal person would've maybe splurged on a candy bar...a bowl of ice cream...or even just chalked it up to water retention and waited it out. Normal is just a setting on the washer around here, folks.

You won't be surprised then to know I was up another 2 pounds Friday morning. I beat myself up about it, as silly as it was. Diets are such an up and down thing, often like two steps forward and one step back. The problem is that I'm used to losing 10 pounds a month during diets (18 pounds last February alone) so now that I'm on the lower end of where my weight has been in the last 10 years, I can't expect it to come off as fast.

In the end, if I don't hit my goal by Christmas, it wasn't meant to be. At least I'm maintaining my weight, not watching it slowly climb as it was, before throwing all caution to the wind. I feel better when I watch it. I'll keep at it, hopefully exercising more restraint next time I decide I need a free day.

Still 22 pounds to go.