At the beginning of the year, I was in pretty decent shape. I was doing a ton of walking, and sticking with an eating plan that helped me feel better (physically and emotionally): tons of vegetables of all sorts, some fruit, meat/chicken/fish, eggs, nuts. Very little sugar. Occasionally beans and rice. And I mostly cut dairy, since last summer I tried a month without it as an experiment and found I'm actually somewhat sensitive to it. Don't get me wrong, I cannot and will not ever completely give up ice cream and cheese, but it does make my heart race and causes congestion, so it's a trade-off. I also discovered long ago that even if bread *weren't* fairly empty calories, I'm better off without it generally speaking because it makes me sleepy and stupid for several hours afterward.
So I was eating lots of big salads, fresh omelets with plenty of vegetables, grilled steak with vegetables, roast chicken with vegetables, broiled fish with vegetables, vegetables with vegetables. You get the picture.
But I fell off the wagon somewhere along the line--Easter, maybe--and I've never gotten back. Thankfully I'm only up a few pounds, but I've been bouncing from sugar high to sugar high and I haven't been walking and I just feel...blah. Time to get back on track.
I do want to lose about fifteen pounds. Seems like I always do. And that's part of the goal this time. However, I've decided to do something a little different this time around: I'm putting the scale away, at least for awhile.
Why? Well, mostly because I'm weak willed and I know how it affects me:
If the scale is up for a given day/week: "Man, nothing I do matters. I might as well cheat."
If the scale is down for a given day/week: "Wow, I'm doing great! I deserve a little cheat."
I think putting it away for a time will help keep me honest. I'm more likely to err on the side of caution as far as eating habits go if I'm not seeing the numbers, I won't be emotionally tormented by daily fluctuations, and even if I don't see the number I hope for at the end of the experiment, at least I'll only be supremely bummed once.
So...the scale is going in the closet until my birthday in mid-October. And I'm stocking up on vegetables, polishing up the FitBit, and pulling out my walking shoes again. 'Cause I'm the boss and I said so.
5 comments:
You can do it. Get out and get walking again. Then there is always Yacon syrup.
Mrs M. claims about a pound of weight loss every few days.
Harvesting that awesome garden of yours will be a big help.
Indeed! I've already been making salads with the greens, and the other night I did a thing with chicken and summer squash and basil and boughten tomato sauce...later the tomatoes can come from the garden, too. I'm going to need to learn to can them, in fact....
Do I dare to be pedantic? A scale is a device that measures the gravitational pull on a mass. Lean mass is more dense than fat mass. Thus, the better shape you are in, the more you may weigh. My suggestion is to put that nasty old scale away and forget about it.
And, gosh, I hope your container garden is doing better than mine! We've had a wet Spring and the wind keeps knocking my tomato plants over.
I know, I know. But I also know I have more to lose than will be countered by increased muscle. And I have a vague (and modest) range in mind from when I felt healthiest and most comfortable, and I'd really like to hit that range again...
Though I guess it's true, I'm just as likely to know I've reached a comfortable point because I feel comfortable with it, rather than because a magic number shows up on the scale. So there is that.
Garden is doing great! I do need to do some tomato branch propping, but the main plants are pretty solidly anchored. I used BIG pots.
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