Is it just me, or does weight gain or loss tend to follow a little behind the activities that produce it? Last year when I was working with that nutritionist, I noticed a definite pattern that I’d notice a weight gain when I ate a whole bunch a few days AFTER the event, not usually right away. Similarly, when cutting down on my eating it’s sometimes a few days later that I notice the differences.
The reason this comes to mind is because I weighed myself tonight after my workout and shower on the Wild and Unruly Scale of Random Fun that I have here at home. I’ve mentioned before, I think, that I can get on this scale, have it give me a weight, get off the scale and back on it and be a few pounds different… it’s not reliable and I simply cannot trust it to track my weight, so normally the only weights I report here are the ones I take weekly at the weight watcher’s meetings. I do NOT really recommend anyone pay close attention to any scale on a daily basis… there are too many odd fluctuations in body rhythms to stress a daily up and down. It’s gonna happen, just accept it and move on. (Actually, there are really good arguments to just weigh monthly, particularly for women, so they can hit the same points in their monthly cycles and avoid those fluctuations as well.)
Tonight, the Wild and Unruly Scale of Random Fun pegged my weight at 340.7. The lowest I had seen before this measurement was 343.? (oh, like you would remember all the decimal points for all your weigh ins!) — I know the scale swings up and down, but when I see a low swing point lower than I have in such a long time I feel fairly sure that I have lost even more. I mean, let’s say the scale drops as much as five pounds at a weigh in — nothing I can track by regularly, but if the lowest before was 348 something that had swung down to 343, now it’s 345 swinging down to 340.
The oddest thing about this is it follows my pound cake binge yesterday. I did get right back on the wagon today and right now, after dinner (at a point I do NOT feel hungry in the least) I still have 12 more points I’m supposed to get in to get up to my daily points level. That may factor into tonight’s weight as well, but man it feels good to see the scale go down. I suspect the pound cake will coming back to haunt me by week’s end with the delayed reaction weight gain I mentioned earlier, but who knows?
In a totally unrelated moment today, I got an unsolicited comment from a woman I work with today about how I must still be losing weight because I’m looking better. Man that felt good! It’s one thing when you say, “Yeah, I’ve lost 35 pounds” and someone comes back with “yeah, and you look good” — that just feels like you were fishing for a compliment or they wouldn’t have thought of it. But when someone says something out of the blue… yeah, you know they really mean it, and it really must be showing. Felt good. (To be sure, I usually fall in the “not noticing” category… I’ll have to make more of an effort to change that.)
So, my mission at this point… keep today’s momentum and have a great rest of the week… and I suspect it’ll relate to the WW scale on Saturday morning as well. I don’t foresee any major temptations between now and then (although I do see one coming up Saturday night, heh) so we should be in good shape. (In more ways than one in fact!) 
Watch out for birthday cake this weekend! I know it will be taunting me!
Actually, the birthday girl has declined having cake for her birthday. We may wind up having a pie, but those don't normally tempt me as much anyway. We are, however, going to a baseball game on Saturday and that will bring it's own temptations. It's all good though… I know how to budget my points so I won't feel like I'm denying myself when I'm there.
Oh, I like my fun scale! It had me at 223 just now!! heh. (Sure, I stepped on it when I thought it was done calibrating but it wasn't… apparently I had about 120lbs of force on it… but darn it, I'm going to take that 120lb weight loss and run with it! heh)
I'm glad you got the positive remark from your work-mate. I'll bet most people don't want to comment in fear that it will make you overly self-conscious. By the way — I miss you! I hope you and the family are doing well! My life is pretty darn hectic with my extra job. Hope we can catch up soon.
I actually read that when you go off the wagon-briefly-it is a good thing to keep your metabolism on its toes and to keep it from hanging onto every little shred of fat. And yes, I agree about weight fluctuations, I stopped weighing daily when it was crushing my dreams.
We have a BUILT-IN scale that was put in when the house was built-in the 1950s! And I'll be darned if that thing doesn't register differently every time I step on it in succession. Another reason I stopped paying attention until the weekly weigh-in.
Polar's Mom http://www.polarspage.blogspot.com
I love getting positive, unsolicited comments. They seem to be coming a lot more frequently now. Perhaps because I'm dressing better? Oddly enough, I lost about 50 lbs before going on vacation in June. My immediate co-workers were commenting on my weight loss progress since about 2 months in, but the people I only see in passing never really seemed to notice. Then, I go on vacation for 2 weeks and all of a sudden everyone around me was commenting on how good I started to look. Quite an eye opener and ego booster. I've lost another 15 lbs since June and the compliments keep flowing. I'll be impossible to deal with soon. Or, I would be if I didn't recognize that I still have another 20 lbs to lose before I start trying to maintain my weight. Losses happen a lot slower now though so Feb 2011 is my new goal date.