Unsafe at Any Size

Down another 0.2 this week, which is, as the title says, better than a poke in the eye.  I’m at 182.8, down a total of 103.4.

I’ve decided my goal weight is somewhere around 165.  This is 10 lbs higher than the BMI recommends for my height, but as you probably read, the BMI is bogus for a number of reasons.  I don’t think it’s a realistic number for me, anyway; I want to be comfortable and not starving all the time.  I’m fairly muscular now, and rather small on top (actually fit in a small shirt last week at Macy’s) but have a lot of junk in the trunk.  With all the squats I’m doing now I’d like to think the fat is covering lots of muscle, but it’s hard to be sure!

At the rate I’m going, it will take me way over a year to accomplish this goal.  Yikes.

We still have a substitute leader at my meeting, and the ranks have been very thin; we miss our cranky leader, and aren’t happy about all the perkiness this substitute leader brings.  I hope she comes back soon!

How did I gain 4.8 lbs this week??  Ok, so I did have too much challah last night; I think when we celebrate Shabbat, we’re going to have to forgo the challah.

Meeting topic today was on breakfast.  Yes, you’ve got to eat it.  I eat the same thing each day, just about: nonfat yogurt, berries and fiber one.  On weekends, steel cut oats and scrambled eggs.  And on the go, PB2 and low-points bread/muffin/bagel and a banana.

I’m going to do better tracking, and hopefully will have a better week next week.

Woo hoo!  Actually lost weight this week-3.2 lbs, for a total of 104 down.  What did I do differently.  It’s a boring answer: I tracked.  And I avoided the junk at work.  And I exercised.

I realized last week that if I wasn’t tracking and if I wasn’t taking it seriously, then I may as well stop paying my money.  The cheapscape in me responded!

A few more wins for the week: I checked the BMI, and whaddya know, I’m officially overweight!  That’s a good thing, since I’ve been on the obese side of the curve for so long.  Being merely overweight is a big win.

AND I can now fit in size 14 pants!  When I started, it was size 28 pushing 30.

I realize this is where many begin on their weight loss journey, but given where I’ve been, these are all big wins.

The meeting topic this week was on saving money for exercise.  I can’t say I have any good advice here; I pay for a gym.  But, I get my money’s worth by going, so there’s something.

Good luck to everyone out there!

Another bad week-up .6 again.  My leader says .6 is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but you know she wouldn’t be saying that if it was .6 down!

So my goal this week is to pick  a goal.  And start tracking.

The meeting topic this week was on positive thinking.  Topics like this one is one of the reasons I really like Weight Watchers; although the ultimate objective is to lose weight, the meetings are about supportive life skills.  We looked at 6 self-defeating behaviors that sabotage our efforts for positive change:

1.  Perfectionistic thinking.  Perfectionism is a setup for failure since no one can be perfect.  It’s a bit of an ego trip in my experience, since you would never expect a friend to be perfect but you expect it from yourself.  Treat yourself like you’d treat a friend, who makes mistakes but is worthy of forgiveness.

2.  Generalizing.  The tendency to use the word “always,” as “I always overdo it at the potluck.”  Leads to 6, self-fulfilling prophecies.

3.  Selective viewing.  This one goes with generalizing, I think, as the focus on what you do wrong, instead of everything else that you did right, such as focusing on the heaping plate at the potluck, instead of seeing what went well, too, such as only going once and ignoring the dessert table (yeah, right…ooops, that’s not positive thinking).  Look at the whole picture, and you’ll get a more balanced view.

4.  Disqualifying the positive.  When measuring success, we tend to ignore the progress and focus on the trouble spots.  For me, that’s “yes, I’ve lost a hundred pounds, but I really need a new goal to make more progress.”  Keeping the positive in focus might help me build on success instead of focusing on trouble spots.

5.  Absolutist thinking.  The all-or-nothing approach doesn’t give us room for little variations.  If I must never eat white sugar, and then I am momentarily blinded and dazzled by the chocolate someone brings back from England, that isn’t an absolute failure that then gives me leave to eat the whole bar.  A small slip can stay that way-small-and the rest of the day can be better.

6.  Self-fulfilling prophecies.  Back to the pot-luck, planning to fail never helped anyone.  The good thing about a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you can call it good, is that you get the pleasure of being right, and that can be another tick in the perfect category.  But how about making another, more positive prophecy, with the risk of failure, but also with the chance for success.

So this week, I’m working on a more postive and nuanced view of what I’m doing.  Oh, and deciding on a goal.