A Slave to the NUMBERS

I really hope you enjoyed my last, really happy, post. This one will be a far cry from that one. Consider yourself warned! What's even better is this post could have been a lot worse if I would have written it earlier.

Today is day 30. I have been on this particular part of my (very long) journey for 30 days. And for these 30 days I was pretty close to as perfect as possible. I tracked my food EVERY single day; I had no wine; I exercised (hard) 25 of those 30 days; I averaged right around 1600 calories consumed daily and 3600 calories burned daily.

According to my home scale I am down just around 10 lbs in these 30 days. I say "around" because I did change scales in the middle there so my starting weight might have actually be a little lower on this current scale. I THOUGHT it would be cool to get a halfway checkpoint on the LL scale since I weighed on that one right before I started and I'll have to weigh on that one in March.

Yea. I WAS WRONG!

BIG crocodile tears today 😢

That scale this morning was 4.8 lbs HEAVIER than my scale at home. I'm sorry but I call bullshit on that! But; I let it completely derail me this morning. I was in tears and feeling totally and completely defeated. My body fat only went down 1.2% according to their device - but again, that was based on that higher weight that I really don't think was accurate.

According to the LL scale I lost 6.4 pounds in my awesome 30 days of being pretty darn near perfect. Nope. I don't believe it. I've lost 6 pounds in 30 days before when giving myself 2 free days every single week! Last April when my goal was to log every day that month and avoid wine I lost 6.2 pounds and I averaged over 2100 calories daily! I've lost 10.4 pounds in 2 WEEKS before doing WW (and not when I was a teenager either).

So if I don't believe their scale WHY do I let it get to me? Well....because I'M A SLAVE TO THE NUMBERS!!!!!! Do you see all those numbers I listed above? I could give you more. I could give you my average heart rate for every workout; my calories burned for every workout; my weight on almost every day; etc, etc, etc. It could go on forever!

I made a choice today and ONE of my goals for the next 28 days is to get away from the numbers! This is going to go farther than just giving up the dreaded scale (exactly like I talked about on this SAME day last year. I mean, it is SCARY how similar that post from last year is to this one. Yet, I clearly haven't learned. That number continues to be more important to me than it should be. But I digress). I am going to give up my GARMIN in addition to the scale. 😲This is a BIG deal, guys! I have worn that Garmin (or another version of it) on my wrist for probably 4 years. CLEARLY it is not helping me reach my goals.

Part of what derails me on days like today is that I know all these numbers and I know what they SHOULD equal. I mean, an average 2000 calorie daily deficit should equal 16 pounds lost in 30 days. It clearly isn't always going to happen that way and as much as I'd like to think I could be OK with it; I'm only OK with it if I find the number (on the scale, of my body fat, etc) acceptable. Today would have turned out VERY differently if that scale at LL showed a 10 lb loss instead of a 6.4 lb loss.

But, REALLY!?!?! That is the dumbest sentence I may have ever typed! WHY?! WHY does that stupid, f-ing number on the scale dictate my day? Does that number take away what I have accomplished this month? Does it take away the fact that in a short 30 days I have increased my strength at the gym by a considerable amount? Does it change the fact that I WAS as close to perfect as humanely possible??? NO! OF COURSE NOT! So it's time to get my head out of my ass and realize all this that I already know.

This contest is what it is. This contest is just the start of my 2018 chapter of my journey. If we win, great; if we don't, that's OK too as long as I make changes that will help me make the end of my 2018 chapter what I want it to be.

And with that, my friends, I'll leave you. Hopefully the next time I check in I won't have to yell at myself so much!