If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ve been or are overweight and I’m hoping that this will resonate with you. I need to talk to you about the scales. Yesterday I kept my promise. I did not get on the scales, that sounds like it really ought to be easy, and it was so hard. My weight when I weighed on Monday morning to get a start point for this journey, had gone up quite a chunk since my previous weigh in. For a while my weight had been about 17st 4lbs, and on Monday I was 17st 8lb.
For the last two days I’ve eaten less than I would ever normally eat in two days. Yesterday my intake was my breakfast smoothie, my yoghurt, fruit, and seeds mix, which incidentally was the one that I made for my lunch on Monday, but didn’t eat, so Tuesday I ate Monday’s lunch. Last night for tea, I had two slices of sourdough toast with two boiled eggs.
I woke up this morning knowing that the chances were I’ve lost some weight because of excess water and two days of eating very little, and I couldn’t resist. I did it. I got on the scales. And my weight, since Monday, has gone down a whopping 7 lb! I can’t believe it! I have never seen my weight go down that amount in two days ever before.
Now I’m playing the game of thinking, well it had gone up quickly, so it wasn’t ‘real’ weight. I know that when I gain a lot very quickly a lot of that is excess water that will disappear quite quickly when I get back on track.
But even so, the smile on my face this morning, when the scales read 17 stone 1lb. Which is 7lb less than it was on Monday, is amazing. The scales, The scales, The scales, they’re my friend when things are going well, and then my enemy when things are going bad. They’re my temperature check, they’re an object that has more power over my emotions than any other fact in my life.
I think that it’s better for me to do the daily weigh, because it means I get either a small daily high or small low. Whereas if I have stayed on track for seven whole days and I get on the scales to see no movement, or the tiniest loss, or as has happened many many times, I’ve had a whole week of being really good, and I get on the scales, and it’s actually gone up! Then I think, why on earth would I carry on doing this? Why should I carry on depriving myself of things I want to eat when it’s not even making any difference and actually putting weight on. I have worked with other coaches who do advocate daily weighing so that you’re seeing the daily fluctuations and it’s not all about the weekly weigh in, where you take all of that hope and anticipation into that moment you step on the scale once a week, and then that is your motivation or misery that you have to carry with you for the whole of the next week. It’s just too long, and what if that moment in the week that you pinpoint to get on the scale, just happened to be at the worst possible time on that day or in that week because of a high carb meal or you haven’t been to the toilet or you are on your period. When you do it every single day you just see those little fluctuations, and as long as it fluctuates in a downward trajectory, is that okay? I’m sure this will not be the first time an entire diary entry is dedicated to the psychology of the scales.
I got on the scales because I needed that encouragement, the evidence, the high that I suspected was going to come. Then I was so happy that I got off the scales and had to get back on them, just to make sure, and then I got on my other scales, I have two different scales, because you know, that’s just what we do, and they agreed with the first scales. So, it’s official. I’m very excited for today.
I have also received my order for my next Mounjaro pen dose, the 5mg. (I have started on the 2.5 mg which I will use for 4 weeks and then progress to this next pen) It’s reassuring to know that it is already on hand, and I am covered for the next 7 weeks.
Weight: 17 St 1 LB 🙂