drop the fork

The Great Daily Weigh-In

OK, I admit it.

I weigh myself every day.

But I'm not obsessive about it. Really.

I do not weigh on vacation, or when I'm at my weekend house. But when I am home, I weigh every day. I know my ups and downs, weight-wise, and am comfortable with them. In fact, I can usually predict, the night before, about what I'll weigh the next morning.

Here's the truth about maintenance: it does not involve staying at a single weight. It is impossible to keep the same weight day after day after day. Changes in fluid retention, gut content, and numerous other factors make your weight fluctuate from day to day (and in fact, from hour to hour).

I work on maintaining a weight range, rather than a single weight. My range, right now, is 132 - 136. When I go above 136 on any weigh-in day, I spring into action, cutting my intake back a little each day until I'm back to about mid-range.

Weighing is a great maintenance tool. Step on the scale, and it gives you instant feedback about how well you're balancing intake and output. You can take that information and use it to figure out whether you can just keep doin' what you're doin', or if you need to cut your food back a bit for a few days.

Problems occur only when you emotionalize your weigh-in.

When I weigh myself, all I'm doing is seeing how much I weigh. I am not weighing my:

1. happiness
2. self-esteem
3. mood
4. self image
5. worth

. . . or anything else. I'm weighing my body. Period. I want to see how well I'm doing with estimating my food intake and calories burned. If I'm down a bit, fine. If I'm up a bit, fine. The former requires no action. The second may require action for a few days, if I've gone above the top of my weight range.

Here's my thought for the day: the scale and your emotions are not meant to be married to each other. Get them a divorce. Use your weigh-ins, no matter how frequent or infrequent, as a valuable feedback tool. Don't let the scale determine your mood for the day.

You'll find weighing in a lot easier, believe me.

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Why the Scale Lies

A Triathlete's Personal Perspective

In Sickness and in Health

I regard my vow to stay at a healthy weight the same way I regard my marriage vow. In sickness and in health, I will do whatever it takes.

OK, time to call in the chips, because I am sick. REALLY sick.

You don't want the gory details, believe me. Suffice it to say that the last time I had a gastro bug this bad, it HAD to have been when I was a kid. Ugh. I was so bad off, I had the paramedics called (at work). I really thought I was going to keel over. I didn't, but I got intimately acquainted with the ladies' room floor . . . we don't have a sick room or a couch anywhere.

I'm feeling a bit better, and yeah, it's 4 am, but I'm not sleepy. I've been sleeping most of the afternoon. So, I'm sitting in the loft, cocooned in my huge chair, and (hopefully) letting hubby get some shuteye. I'm keeping down crackers and Coke (the real thing, not diet). No work today, I'm not even 60% yet, but maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

I weighed myself after the, er, "festivities" of the afternoon, just to see how dehydrated I'd gotten. I was a little more than a pound under where I should be. That's not bad, not bad at all. My doc told me I would be fine even if I couldn't keep anything down until the next day, but it was good to see that the virus, or whatever it was, hadn't seriously decimated me.

Weighing in after the onslaught reminded me of a time, when I was in high school, when I caught another gastro bug. I had "dieted" my way down to about 117 or so (mostly, I think, from drinking tons of Diet Rite Cola and eating very little in general). I got some sort of stomach flu, the exact details of which now escape me (that was REALLY long ago). I do, however, remember weighing myself afterward and seeing the scale hit 113.

Man, I was ecstatic! 113!!! I had never weighed that before (or, truthfully, since). No, it didn't last. And, of course, I regained the weight I had lost on the Diet Rite Cola diet, and more, once I went away to college.

My attitude today is very different.

When I stepped on the scale to see how much damage the virus had done, I was actually relieved to see that the weight number wasn't even lower. I know now that water losses are not "real," and that proper hydration is terribly important.

Besides, I make a distinction between losing FAT and losing "weight." Losing water weight is pointless (unless you're bloated, of course; we women are quite familar with that cyclical phenomenon). Losing muscle is even more pointless and, in fact, is damaging. Muscle burns calories. Strong, dense muscles help you function well every day. I lift weights not only to keep my figure trim, but also because I want to be strong in my old age. I so do not want one of those easy chairs that help you stand up. I prefer using my own muscle power.

So now, for the next day or so, I get to lie around and do something I don't normally do: drink real Coke and eat crackers. (And rice or soup, assuming I get energized enough to fix some.) Yes, I will journal it all. That's my style. I'm unlikely to eat too much, but I'm also unlikely to lose any weight. You burn way fewer calories resting in bed, than when you're up and about. But, that's OK. Time enough for me to resume my usual routine, when I'm all better. I am bummed that I won't be doing my early morning bike rides for a day or two. But, time enough for that, too. The important thing right now is to take care of myself, rest, and let my body heal properly.

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Gastrointestinal infections

More on exercise and health, from Dr. Ed

Why drinking water helps with weight loss

"With Me, It's All or Nuthin' . . ."

"Is it all or nuthin' with you??"*

Geez, I sure hope not. At least, not where weight loss and maintenance are concerned.

Truth be told, I'm something of a perfectionist. But I've had to rein in my perfectionistic tendencies in several areas of my life. My house isn't perfectly clean and neat (I'm sure this comes as a complete shock to you). I don't change my furnace filters on time, my grandfather clock oftentimes goes unwound (it's dead right now, in fact), and I don't try to be perfect in my eating habits.

Why?

Because "all or nothing" thinking is a guaranteed one-way ticket to failure.

That's the thing about "diets," you see. Folks panic when they think they've "blown it" or "fallen off the wagon." I am not quite sure why this is. Think about it . . . did you get 100% on every test in school? No? You still graduated, though, right? And you know a few things . . . enough to earn a living, get through life, teach your kids?

I thought so. Yet, you didn't "do" school perfectly.

So, why do you think you have to follow a food plan perfectly?

I will admit, though, that once upon a time, I thought I had to follow a diet plan to a T in order to succeed. I would be absolute perfection the first couple of days, and I'd watch the scale drop. Somewhere around the third day, some extra food would creep in (yeah, I'd be pretty hungry by then). The scale would stop moving. I would then figure that I'd blown it, and I'd abandon the whole thing.

How I changed my thinking and got from there to here is a whole 'nother story. I can tell you, though, that eating "perfectly" ain't the answer. "Good enough" is, well, good enough.

Where weight loss and maintenance are concerned, "good enough" will do. What does this mean? It means that in the long run, if you eat less than you burn, you will lose weight. If you eat more than you planned one day, it's not the end of the world. Say, for example, that you eat a couple of cookies that you hadn't planned on. What happens? Well, you probably consumed maybe 200 extra calories. Seeing as how a sensible eating plan will have you cutting back roughly 500 calories a day, you're still ahead by about 300.

Let's say it wasn't a couple of extra cookies . . . it was a couple of extra MEALS. Yeah, that's going to be a bit more than 200 calories. But if you work at eating less than you burn most days, in the long run those extra meals won't matter. (Unless you have a couple of extra meals every couple of days. THAT won't work.)

Maintaining a healthy weight for a lifetime doesn't require perfection. What it does require is persistence -- and the realization that mistakes don't have to blow things sky high. It's what you do in the long run that counts, not what you do on any given day.

Bottom line, gang: you don't have to be perfect to lose weight and keep it off. You just have to get it right most of the time. So, learn from your mistakes, don't beat yourself up over them, and celebrate your successes. (I have it on good authority that self-flagellation does not burn extra calories.)

If perfection were necessary to lose weight and keep it off, you'd sure not be reading my words right now. If this reformed perfectionist can do it, surely you can, too.

*Sung by Ado Annie in Oklahoma!, a musical I was in, once upon a very-long-time-ago. No, I wasn't Ms. Ado . . . I was just in the chorus.

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Some more info to chew on:

Cognitive Distortions (including All or Nothing Thinking)

From Perfectionism to Realistic Living

Positive Thinking and Weight Loss