Thank your Squishy for the ole "STALLED WEIGHT LOSS" trick!!!!!

I close my eyes each night hoping for some level success in the morning when I roll out of bed, head to the restroom, relieve the 20 ounces of water I drank before bed, and jump on the scale. I know.... They say not to weigh yourself daily! Daily weigh-ins are not always motivational and that is why they are not recommended. I blame my background and my nature for my day to day relationship with my scale. I have a heavy background in military and law enforcement work which later transitioned into a job the tech world. All of my positions required constant vision into the right now. It required me to measure immediate results of my labor to ensure my success in sometimes split second timeframes. This constant monitoring engrained into me the philosophy to immediately look at results and if results are not coming from current input; change the input to quickly obtain the results... My background never allowed me to sit back and just wait to see what happens.

Weight loss is a different animal all together…. As you fight your body to shed pounds, your body fights you to keep them. What I have noticed over the years is that your scale will drive you nuts... Never should you question your ultimate success if daily weight loss is stalling or going in the wrong direction unless, you are not putting in the effort, ABC’s (Always Be Cognizant) to lose weight. If you are doing the right things, use your daily weigh-ins as a guideline to understanding what your body is doing while you are trying to lose weight. Don't let it depress you as the daily weigh-in does not forecast your ultimate success. Save that measure of your personal success for your weekly weigh-in. Daily weigh-ins' will give you insight into small tweaks that will ensure your weekly goal. You must maintain either a mental or physical log to associate your gains, losses, or stalls to what your activity, food intake, sleep, and focus has been. Your body has a great mechanism to self-preserve. If you start dropping pounds too fast it will freak out and go into rescue mode and stall your progress.

If you are maintaining what I call a robotic lifestyle (eating the same thing while on your diet, do the same workout, and sticking to a “same ole same mentality”) your body will recognize your efforts, adapt to it, and stall your progress. Keep your exercise regime in a constant change of flux as well as your diet. Mix it up! See what works and what doesn’t. Keep great notes and adapt as your body adapts to what you are doing. I noticed that not sticking to “No food past 7PM” and “No diet soda” did cause a stall in my weight loss. I will talk to you about my new “fountain of youth” Soda Stream gadget in another blog. As for my late night eating, sometimes our schedules get crazy and what we plan on doesn’t always come to be. Keep cognizant of small failures in your plan and use them to help sharpen your focus. If you know your schedule sometimes does not allow you to get home in time to make your planned dinner within schedule, carry a meal bar with you and go to plan B for your meal. No, a meal bar is not as satisfying as a home cooked meal but it will keep you on track for success. After noticing my stall in weight loss, I dropped the quantity of Soda Stream Heavenly yummy liquid I was consuming and stuck to the “No meals after 7 rule” for the past several days. I got on the scale this morning and smiled! My progress continues……………………….

It’s the small things you do that will make the greatest effect on that success you have in the end. Keep up the good work and I will see you at the finish line……

Travis

01/15/2015 9:43AM

Thanks for sharing, keep up the good work and keep doing the small things.

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Jennifer O.

01/14/2015 11:10AM

Thank you for this! "As you fight your body to shed pounds, your body fights you to keep them." I never thought about it like this. It does help!! I, too, am an everyday weigher. I haven't been seeing the progress I wanted the past couple of days, however, I lost 4.5lbs last week. I now see that it could be my body, fighting, since I lost so much last week, and not any failure of mine.

Rich B.

01/14/2015 10:58AM

I'm a fan of daily weigh-ins. The key is to look at the trend and not at the daily "noise". The trend never lies... Especially with regards to weight loss, I enjoy "The Hacker's Diet" discussion of "Signal to Noise." I use a Withings scale, and their app does a similar trend line automatically.http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/signalnoise.html

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truando

I was going to write the same thing but you were first. the hacker's diet is great for us daily weighters. I enter my number every day and look at the trend at fourmilab. very motivating.

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