I woke up this morning, put on my "Official Diet Bet Airport Security Apparel" and stepped on the scale.
My eyes were closed.
I was wearing my cringing face.
And then I forced myself to open my eyes and look down.
HOLY COW!
I lost weight!
I proceeded to step off and on 3 times just to assure myself that my scales weren't acting up, or the battery dying.
Then I ran into the livingroom to log onto Dietbet and record my weight. My face is grinning and I am wondering who I can wake up to share this good news with!
Then it hit me... Why am I so shocked?
I ate 1200-1500 calories a day, walked every morning and ran in the evenings. It would be much more shocking if I didn't lose weight.
What makes me expect to fail? What makes me think that I am some sort of special "case" that resists weight loss?
And I think I've figured it out. You see, when we look back at our weight loss attempts, we only remember the outcomes... not the details of the diet. We remember that we went on XXXX Diet and didn't lose any weight. We forget about the carton of Ben and Jerry's we ate every night! And because of these sometimes numerous failures, we begin to think that dieting just doesn't work for us.
I can even use my current diet as an example. I have been on a diet for 11 weeks now. At first I lost weight pretty consistently... 6 lbs in the first 6 weeks. But then - from weeks 7-10 I didn't lose anything. In fact, I gained a couple of lbs back! I said things like "this diet just isn't working for me" and "I don't know what is going on."
But I was fooling myself. I knew exactly what was going on... I had started eating more food! Our family had gone on a weekend get-a-way at the end of June and I had a "treat or two, since I'm on vacation" and had quit logging my calories on My Fitness Pal. Then, when I got back home it was hard to stop. So hard to stop.
The diet didn't fail me - I failed the diet!
Thankfully, Mindy started this DietBet just in time. When I saw the invite on facebook, it was like a beacon of hope flashing in the night!
This past week has been difficult. I've been hungry. My legs have hurt from the increase in exercise, and I've felt exhausted from getting up in the morning to go walking (I'm a night owl!)
But seeing that loss on the scales this morning made it all worthwhile!
I've lost quite a bit of weight this week, which I know is common for the first week back on a diet. I know that the numbers won't be nearly so impressive in the comong weeks.
But I can be assured of one thing. If I stick to it... If I keep logging every calorie and working hard... those numbers WILL continue to go down!
This time, I will not fail!