I dared to weigh myself this morning, knowing I shouldn’t. I have a fitbit watch/bracelet that documents me and I was hoping beyond expectations that I lost something, anything.
I shed my outers, carefully placed myself on the scale and came up one pound lost since my last weight date which was yesterday (Wednesday).
Yesterday I lost two pounds since my previous weight date which was two days before that (Monday).
Five pound weight loss since my original weigh-in day 5-25-2021 Tuesday.
‘I’VE GOT DIAMONDS ON THE SOLES OF MY SHOES’ ~ PAUL SIMON
Those are the words that ran through my work-weary brain lifting me to new heights all over a one pound weight loss.
Now the key – and this is where I nearly always fail – is to keep that figure from rising again. The only way to do it is to reduce my calorie and salt intake and increase my short interval rapid exercise reps to increase my metabolism.
I won’t weigh myself tomorrow. Today is 3 June 2021 Thursday. Once a week weigh-in sounds reasonable. There’s a problem with a set date though. People, of which I am one, find all kinds of loopholes to beat the system, like eating what they want the first half of the week and starving themselves the second half, or if they have pandemic fatigue they’ll shoot it all to the wind and hope the scale understands and gives them a break.
Okay, so I’m back to the scale and recording (sort of) what I consume. I’m taking note without writing it down. I know however that whatever the scale says and many times it disappoints, that the gut is visible and I can feel it as I move or don’t.
Scales and Mirrors. I’ll keep using both while I’m in this determined frame of mind. My weight goal is 135 @ 5’8″. I’m sitting at 160 this morning, so I have 25 more pounds to go.
I need to be careful that this uplift doesn’t signal to my brain that it’s okay to drop my guard. I need to keep that guard up – guarding the gate, the intake of calories.
About this fitbit: I walked nineteen miles from 25 May to 3 June and I hardly left the house. Who would think that was possible? Steve said in response, “You do move around a lot in this apartment”. So I got a double lift today. I was exercising more than I thought. Thanks to fitbit.
Another misconception: People talk about how few calories are burned during exercise, especially light exercise. So for years I thought the few calories I was burning on the treadmill weren’t contributing to my weight loss when I did lose weight. Now I understand more fully that the planned exercise isn’t so much about losing weight as it is about staying strong and flexible.
What I didn’t realize was how many calories we burn at rest, even when sleeping, just by the fact that we’re alive and our bodies and all its systems are active. If you consider only one bodily function, then the amount of energy used may not be much, but tie the entire body together and it’s a lot more than I ever thought. So the people who control how you think about weight loss leave out critical information that you need in order to understand energy and the burning of calories, by the shortcuts they take in communications.
For instance, if a nutrition/exercise expert tells you that walking one mile burns 100 calories and you’re on a thousand calorie diet, then most would think that they have to walk the equivalent of ten miles to burn off one thousand calories just to break even. Or that you need to burn 3500 calories to lose one pound, which translates to most that you have to walk thirty-five miles to lose that pound. That’s discouraging. What they don’t tell you is that you’re burning calories all the time.
This morning I was up for about 3 hours and already burned 500 plus calories with no designated exercise. Thanks to fitbit for letting me know that.
Later Gators,
keep the faith in yourself
Sharon
FAT-FREE CHEF™ 