When the Going Gets Tough . . .

Disappointing news today.

For my third exercise of the week I decided to go to 24 Hour Fitness so I could record my Earth Body Mass Index. The news is not good; 251 was my first weigh in when I walked in the door so I am up over a pound.

I started thinking about that as I exercised: had I cheated? Was I on plan? Was I doing what I had said I would do? I haven’t been perfect (last night I had a couple table spoons of peanut butter and less than 30 minutes later I ate chow mien). So I haven’t been perfect, but I’ve been “very good”. Yet I’ve plateaued . . . at least for the moment.

Then the bargaining began; I’d weigh myself after exercise again and take the lesser of the two values. That of course implied that I wouldn’t drink during exercise . . . not good as I sweat a lot and work hard. That would clearly be a violation of Rule #2 which is roughly “Do no Harm”.

From past dieting with Weight Watchers, I know that what you wear can be important. Extra change in your pockets, wearing a sweater or a coat, going pee before you weigh in. I have already experienced that madness before and so when I started this program I had decided to make sure to always wear the same thing. Besides always using the same scale, using the 24 Hour Fitness scale means I will always be dressed the same. This would give me a consistency that I knew would be important. The first time I weighed in two weeks ago when I started, I wore my towel around my neck. The madness hit and I spread out my sweaty towel as I exercised so that I could get maximum drying before I went to weigh in again. Even as I did it I knew it was the wrong approach to what I am facing.

And still . . . there was Rule #2 and I was working hard with no water . . . not good.

I know my tendencies . . . black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. For this program I want to watch myself and make sure I don’t go to “the dark side”. I want/need to respond to this challenge, but in a positive constructive way. I kept walking up the exercise stairs as I considered my alternatives.

Eventually as I exercised, I started to balance and take the larger view of what I was doing here. There are some really good things happening here:

1. While this Blog is only two weeks old, I have been exercising three times a week for several months now. My body has responded well. Based on the pull downs and other exercise that I am doing, I am stronger now at 57 than I was as a youth or even in my 20s or 30s.

2. The extra vegetables that the FFL way of eating has me not just eating but actually liking, (go figure Mother was right after all) have meant my hemroids don’t bother me at all.

3. Additionally, the fresh vegetables nourish my body in a way that I cannot explain. I need to eat less. Perhaps this is just “the power of suggestion” from the FFL book, but it seems to me to actually be true. If I am eating lots of salads and fresh veggies, I just seem to be less hungry.

Those are all to the “plus side” . . . good things that have happened even if the scale is not rewarding me . . . indeed they are good things that will likely continue to happen even if the scale never rewards me. (deflect!)

So . . . how to respond . . .

These are the things I’ve come up with:

1. For eating; stay the course. FFL works for me . . . keep doing it. Having said that, at work I eat a lot of snacks. On program stacks to be sure, but since there is no calorie counting on this program I haven’t monitored them or limited them in any way. The refrigerator at home has a package of precut carrots in it which I like but don’t eat often. I will take those to work and try to replace at least one of the snack each day with carrots. I will evaluate this once I’ve done that for a week or two, but it seems like a modest and positive step that could be helpful and have an impact.

2. CKT (Controlled Kinesiology Testing). My experience is that much of my weight is emotionally based. Certainly my eating is often emotionally base (a discussion for another day). CKT is one of those things that I “know I should do”, but really don’t care for and don’t do often. It would be nice to say I’ll do seven 20 minute sessions a week, but that wouldn’t be something I would actually do. So I’ll start by committing to two 5 minute sessions a week focused just on my body and anything it is using to “hold weight”. (I will update Methods and create a tracking sheet for this after I finish this post.)

3. I need to re-read the Fit For Life book. It was a real eye opener for me. I first read it well over a year ago, and I know that it was all so new to me that I didn’t retain much of the information in it. I need to re-read it from a new perspective. However, I am in the middle of another book that I want to finish and reading is a luxury I don’t get to do often. So my commitment is to re-read it by November 1st (yes almost two months).

So . . . stay the course with a few small tune ups . . .

BTW – the weight that I put in my tracking for today . . . this is my first weight when I walked in the door today. While I did re-weight and it was much less, I decided not to cheat on it like that. That would just lead me in the wrong direction.

Sorry for the long post . . . a lot to think about today.