You know what? Scratch that. I need to stop saying I'm off track or on track. Perhaps this is just what my track looks like. Let's face it; this is the way I lose weight. I have a few months where I am very actively losing weight and then a few months where I am mostly maintaining (sometimes gaining). This cycle has been repeating since I really got re-focused on losing weight in April 2014.
Rather than thinking of it as my normal weight loss cycle, I tend to put a negative spin on it and think that I always "fall off the wagon" for several months out of the year. Why do we have to be so negative? The reality is that I have been consistently losing weight since April 2014. It hasn't been fast. It certainly hasn't be linear; but my weight has gone down every year.
Here's the kicker; I have made some huge strides this year to improve this journey. I am figuring out how to stay more consistent so that the weight comes off a little faster. In 2016 I was so off and on that in the end I was only 2.4 pounds lighter on January 1, 2017 than I was on 1/1/16. Throughout 2016 I had lost 29 pounds, but ultimately ended up gaining back 26.6 of those 29 pounds. But, the important thing to note here is that I did not gain all the weight back.
I may have gained back most of what I lost in 2016, but I didn't quit. 2017 came and I tried to get back down to business. I had a rough start and gained another 1.6 pounds from Jan-Feb 2017. But I kept going. In 2017 I lost 28.2 pounds. I gained back 21.3 of those 28.2 pounds and on January 1, 2018 I weighed "only" 6.9 pounds less than I did on Jan 2017. I could look at these stats and be discouraged; but I'm not. What I see is that between 2016 and 2017 I decreased the amount of weight I gained back throughout the year and lost more as a result.
And again, I did not quit. As of today I have lost 30.5 pounds in 2018 and have only gained back 5.6 pounds. That means that as of the beginning of this month (October 8th technically because that was the first day I weighed myself in October); I have lost 24.9 pounds this year. That is quite a jump from 2.4 or 6.9! Now, in 2016 I gained 2 pounds between October and Jan 1st; and in 2017 I gained 9.6 pounds between October and Jan 1st; so I still have work to do to keep on this path of improvement.
I will continue to fight at least enough of the fight to not gain any more weight back. I am doing just barely enough to make that happen; but I'm making a step every week towards doing more to ensure that gaining back more weight doesn't happen. This week I did not meet my goal of tracking every day and staying within my points. But, I made it farther than the week before. I tracked and stayed within my points until Sunday this week! I was so proud of myself on Friday. I woke up wanting to eat everything in site for no reason. I did eat a lot that day but I tracked everything and by the time I ate dinner (before the football game), I decided that my goal was to get through the rest of the night with no more food. I really didn't think I'd meet that goal but I did!
Saturday was great and I ate less throughout the day because I knew I was going to eat more at dinner with friends. I ate way too much Saturday night and was feeling it; but I still estimated my points for everything. By the end of Saturday I had burned through most of my points. I had about 20 of my FitPoints left so really plenty for Sunday to be an easy day. I have no excuses, I just wasn't feeling it on Sunday so I ate a bunch and didn't track it.
Am I mad today? Nope. Sure, I could have seen a lower number on the scale if I would have stayed more on track this week, but I'm choosing to look at the positive. I stayed on track for more days last week than I have in a long time. In case you're wondering I also had a slight loss on the scale today.
Thinking through this blog post today I realized that part of my cycle includes getting to a point where I want the weight loss to happen faster. I think this coincides with the weight loss/gain/maintain cycle because when I'm feeling like I want the weight gone yesterday I inevitably gain or maintain. When I start to take the pressure off of myself and realize that it really doesn't matter how slowly I lose weight as long as I lose it, I resume losing weight.
I have been trying since at least September to "really get back on track" and I've been thinking/feeling really negatively. I look at pictures and see not good enough again. I beat myself up because I should be losing more weight, etc. Well, it's time to get my brain back to realizing that I am doing OK. I am doing even better than I was last year and I will continue to work at this weight loss regardless of how long it takes.
Part of what happened this week is that I dipped into a lot of my weeklies on Wednesday. I used more of them on Thursday and Friday so by Saturday I was already using my FitPoints, which just means that I was already eating at the high end last week so that didn't give much room for a slip up. My goal this week is to try to stay away from my weeklies Mon-Thurs so that basically I'm eating lighter during the week so that I can eat a little more on the weekends. It is always my goal to track, but I'm also not going to beat myself up for not tracking on the weekends. The thing is, if I save basically all my weeklies and FitPoints until the weekend I can pretty easily eat without tracking and still see a loss on the scale on Monday. This method has worked for me in the past and I am sure it can again. It doesn't result in the fastest of weight loss, but if I can lose another 8-12 pounds between now and January 1, 2019 I will be beyond happy. And honestly, if I don't lose another pound but don't gain any more either, I'll be pretty content with that as well.
This was a long one today. If you're still reading thanks for listening to my ramblings. Here's to a great week ahead!
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