dianaschnuth

I ended January the same weight I started it, which I’m counting as a win. (Official Weight Watchers® weigh-in weight, that is — I’m currently half a pound above my New-Years-Day Naked-on-the-Bathroom-Scale weight.)

Non-Scale Victories this month:

• I stayed on-plan the first week of 2015, despite going out to eat for Vietnamese, Indian, Korean, and dim sum (Chinese), plus a take-out deli lunch.
• I caught my reflection in the classroom mirror at the gym before anyone else came in the room, and I surprised myself by how thin I look from the side. I might have struck a pose or two.

While I was making up my graphs for my (upcoming) 2014 Year In Review, I made a discovery — or, rather, was forced to acknowledge what I already knew — that I hadn’t lost any weight since October. In fact, I started gaining.

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Non-Scale Victories:

• A couple different WW members used tips of mine to keep themselves on track!
• I’m on the short list of people who regularly attend fitness classes! Got a mass email asking what classes people would attend over the holidays, with a note to forward it on to anyone who attends classes that she had missed in the list.

Stopped tracking for a few days. Gained a few pounds. Went back to tracking. Lost it again. Overall, I’ve edged up about 3½ pounds since my lowest weigh-in back at the end of October, but I’ve been in that same 3½ to 4-pound range since August.

My overall goal for the holidays (i.e., Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s) is to continue to maintain my weight. I’m OK with gaining a few pounds, as long as I can rein myself back in after a few days of debauchery.

I find that if I gain a few pounds for a few days of overindulgence, those pounds tend to come off quickly. The kind of weight that doesn’t come off quickly is the kind that creeps on over time, unwatched, and that’s not the kind of weight I intend to put on ever again.

I’m going to enjoy my Mom’s butterball cookies, and Tom’s fudge, and the Lofthouse cookies we bought from the store, and the zucchini chocolate cake I’ll be making tonight or tomorrow. I’m going to enjoy the maple-glazed ham and the sweet potatoes and the green bean casserole and the chicken paprikash and the rolls and everything else. And I’m not going to feel guilty about it.

But I’m also not going to make an excuse out of it.

I might not track over the holiday weekend, but I also won’t wait until after New Year’s to get back to my normal habits. Once the Christmas leftovers are gone from the fridge, weight loss begins in earnest once more. This plateau has gone on long enough, and I have ten pounds yet to lose.

I kind of skipped my October weigh-in post, so I’ll do a pre-Thanksgiving weigh-in. I figure that my goal for the next month or so is to maintain, and not gain back any more than a couple of pounds. I’ve been holding steady within the same three-pound range for about three months now, so I have a good chance of continuing to maintain into the new year.

My Weight Watchers leader finally asked me a while back if I’d thought about a goal weight, since I’m now within my healthy range of 139-174. My goal right now is 160, although I’ll be OK with adjusting it if it’s warranted. First, though, I have to get there — or at least give it a good try. That’s about 11 more pounds to go.

NSVs:

• Went down to the cafe with all intentions of buying a piece of cake. Came back upstairs with a yogurt parfait instead.
• Discovered the joys of making my own yogurt parfaits, a la Roni Noone of Green Lite Bites. My current favorite concoction includes diced apple, maple syrup, crumbled graham crackers, and cinnamon.
• Continually kept tracking, even when I went over my Points Target.
• On multiple evenings, I saw that my Fitbit stair count was at 8 floors, so I walked down and up the basement stairs a couple of times before bed to get to my daily goal of 10 floors.
• Stayed within my daily points target on a day when I went out to lunch with a co-worker! (The trick: I stayed away from the delicious but fatty lengua tacos. Tripe tacos are low-points and are just as delicious! To me, anyway.)
• Got a coffee at Starbucks after my ortho appointment and passed up the pastries — even the Petite Vanilla Bean Scones, which are only 3 PPVs each.
• Comment from a co-worker, when I was wearing my once-too-tight black turtleneck: “You’re looking thin today!”
• IM from Sheryl: “you were walking w/nicole and i just see 2 skinny ass girls and i’m like huh i wonder if that’s nicole’s sister / i was like who’s that? huh must be with nicole / then you turned and i’m like oh shit xD”
• My chiropractor once again commented that I’m “getting skinnier and skinnier!”

Non-scale failwhale:

• I let the Jimmy John’s guy talk me into a sandwich that was very close to the sandwich I ordered, but which I didn’t realize had cheese and mayo on it. That was the beginning of a downward spiral that lasted for the rest of that week. I basically used it as an excuse to eat poorly — a return to all-or-nothing thinking.
• Didn’t bring breakfast to work on a weigh-in day, as usual. Realizing that I’d see a gain that week, anyway, I hit up the vending machine for an 18-point cheese danish. That triggered another No Good Very Bad Day that totalled 75 points. Yes, seventy-five, and not even for a special holiday meal. (My daily target is 28.)

Every time I talk in a WW meeting about what tools I use to keep myself on track, whether it’s me being a giant data hoarder or just continuing to track on my off-days, somehow things get turned around and I get labeled as “brave” or “admirable” for going above and beyond. That makes me uncomfortable for many reasons. Mainly, I don’t want to come off like that. I don’t want people to think I’m bragging about how hardcore I am. I’m not. I struggle just as much as everyone else in the room. I’m just trying to share what’s been working for me.

I appreciate the respect of my fellow WW members (and friends and acquaintances and blog subscribers), and it amazes and baffles me that I’m an inspiration to others, but I’m just like you. Don’t think I’m not.