This week I felt like giving up. Every day my upcoming weigh-outs came closer and every day I knew I was going to lose both the KickStarter and my Transformer round. Every day I thought about how the scale wasn't moving and "this is just how I am," so really, why bother? Why all the fuss? Just give in. Be obese forever. Be overweight at your wedding. There are worse things to be than happy and healthy and hefty.
But then I went back to the numbers. I tend to think that some prior planning, an EXCEL sheet and a little determination can fix almost anything. So I went back to the spreadsheet. And what I found was weirdly comforting. I've been tracking (again) for 60 days. And I've lost 5 lbs. And while the part of my brain that has been fed a steady dose of diet schemes from glossy magazines says this is a snail's pace, the EXCEL sheet said something different. The spreadsheet said this is exactly how much I should have lost based on my calorie intake vs. maintenance calories needed. I have a column that calculates how much I'm over/under my maintenance calories each day, and then keeps a running total and translates that to how many pounds I should have lost. And the tally has been stuck at "5" for two full weeks.
Turns out, there's nothing wrong with me or my body or my system...when I'm actually eating fewer calories I actually lose weight. The internet has no shortage of excuses for not losing weight if you are looking for one, from "all calories are not alike" to "diet sodas trick your brain" to genetics and thyroid problems. And these all may be real problems for real people, but they are not my problem. My graphs show a much simpler picture. When I cut my caloric intake by a reasonable/healthy amount, I lose weight.
I lost focus during Mardi Gras and I know that it's very very hard for me to jump back into healthy habits once I fall off the wagon. I have been here before. But seeing that weight loss was possible, that I had done it less than a month ago, made all the difference in pulling me back in. Yesterday was a big ol' junk food blowout. It was the last day of my period and I ate terribly -- beers and wings and fries and burgers (yes, "and" to all of those, plus my "healthy" breakfast and lunch). But when I logged the final total I found that I'd really only eaten a little over my maintenance calories for the day. So no real harm was done. I didn't make any progress yesterday, but I didn't slide back either. Just knowing that my "blowouts" are now around my maintenance level is a huge NSV. My tolerance for crappy food has gone down so much that even when I overindulge I'm not hurting my progress, just treading water for a day.
Finally, my fiancé has been having a rough go lately -- tons of stress at work which bleeds into home life -- and we do not cope with stress in the same way. He tends to disengage from our normal activities, like going to the gym, preferring more and more time at home alone on the computer. But I know that for me, keeping to my normal routines, hitting the gym and eating healthy works much better to keep me on course. I let myself slip quite a few times this week to do his thing with him, but going forward, I need to be more firm. Junk food and sitting around only make me more stressed. It doesn't work for me. I know what works for me, I looked at the numbers.