Friday, September 05, 2008

Swelling Again

Glad it's Friday but wish I'd skipped the weigh in. I was two pound up and feel swollen. I had salt last night. Bummer. I feel like right now my body is real sensitive to everything. I will have to be super drastic if I want the pounds to come off. I can't even eat like I ate when I was five pounds thinner. It is weird but I just need to accept it and make the adjustments. One thing is the lack of exercise which I will be starting again this weekend. The anti biotic I was on made me nervous about working out because there was a link to it and tendon injuries. Being older makes me more wary of these types of things.

So, self acceptance is the concept for today. Accepting that I am in a phase where it is really easy to gain and rather tricky to lose. I have a choice, I can get real drastic and lose in spite of the phase, or be not so drastic and live with the fluctuation, knowing that it will pass and I will again resume the losing spree I have been on for some three years now. All in all, I am still 50 pounds down from 2005 and have much to be grateful for. I am not binging, and in fact I continue to pass up temptations every day. For example, we had an office lunch yesterday and I passed completely on the appetizers. I had my salad and steamed veggies.

This is a dangerous time for me, because of the tendency to get doom and gloom thinking and say what's the use. Or to live all day obsessing about that feeling of tightness in my waistline, and let it dominate how I feel about life. I am not going to do that. I can use that feeling of tightness to influence my food choices in a good way, while accepting that it's one of those days, and if I keep on making the better choices, I will reap the benefits.

I am trying to steer myself into positive thinking and stay there. I keep teetering. I just don't get my body. I recall a few months ago "accidentally" losing pounds when I was not even trying....sheesh!!

4 Comments:

Blogger Bea said...

"Danger, danger Cindy Robinson." (I hope you are old enough to know what the heck I am talking about.) DO NOT FOCUS ON THE WEIGHT. Focus on the healthy eating and the weight will take care of itself. Scale watching was part of why I couldn't stop my relapse. With every pound up I felt more desperate, and what do I do when desperate? I eat.

I now believe if we eat healthy our bodies will find their own normal and correct weight. My normal weight may have been 181 and I just didn't realize it. When I plateaued there while eating on THE PLAN I thought something was wrong and I needed to change what I was doing. Wrongo.

Keep on keeping on and stop mentally struggling with up and down water weight. Unless we totally avoid salt it is inevitable for some of us. Hugs.

10:38 AM  
Blogger Laura N said...

Oh I can so relate. The sucky thing is, 2 pounds makes a big difference in how your clothes fit, doesn't it? It does for me. It's not just a number on the scale. I can wear my size 8 jeans from J Jill if I weigh 151. I can't when I weigh 153. (guess I should have bought the 10s! =)

Do not give up. You have the right attitude. Things will turn around. They have before, they will again. You have come so far and you aren't quitting now.

I know it's tough, when you've worked hard & your body still isn't what you want it to be. I'm in the exact same place. But we are a work in progress--and it's going to get better if we are persistent and don't give in to defeatist thinking.

As Vickie likes to say, Onward & upward!

3:07 PM  
Blogger Vickie said...

I do like to say
Onward and Upward.

My guess is that the antiB and what ever made you sick in the first place is triggering some chemical thing in your body and that is where the tight waist feeling is originating.

Eat veggies/lean protein/good carbs and drink lots of water and make sure you get your sleep.

Don't fall into the trap of wanting/eating processed - because that is what we all do when we don't feel good - and it doesn't work.

We have to recognize THAT is going to happen - I think it is conditioning from saltine crackers and jello and junk that our parents used to feed us when we were 'sick'. And the moral of the story is not to feed this stuff to kids!!!

It is a learned response - recognize it and then gently bundle it up and blow it away.

And when you feel it is safe to start exercising again - start carefully and mindfully. Because (as you said) you don't want to make it worse by adding an injury.

This is all so "not YOU" - it is a chemical thing happening. It is not failure. It is not YOU. It is something scientific.

7:26 AM  
Blogger Vickie said...

I also agree with what Laura said
"I can wear my size 8 jeans from J Jill if I weigh 151. I can't when I weigh 153. (guess I should have bought the 10s! =)"
about the size 10 vs the size 8.

I think we all have to go through that to learn about maintenance.

Some times it is easier to stay in the size 10's and then work on tone.

My husband and I watched a show last night where one of the women weighed the same that I weigh - and my husband commented that I look so much smaller than that woman.

I get this a lot - people will ask if I have lost more - and I have not - my weight is very constant.

But it is the tone that they see. And I tell them that. I think tone is very valuable.

I think I have traded some of my fat weight for muscle weight. And I am actually lucky that the scale has remained constant - for some people the scale goes up - but their body is smaller - when this happens.

If you read carefully in fat blog land - you start to be able to tell the people that are going to be able to maintain and those that are probably going to bounce.

Some people regain 50, 75, 100 pounds by "bouncing" - not ever really landing in maintenance - they have a fleeting bounce at it and start right back up the scale.

Part of it is the magic thinking - not the reality thinking - and part of it is that they never learned the habits that make a healthy life.

The diet thinking will get people into trouble EVERY time. It doesn't work long term.

And those of us that are prone to addictions - simple can't move back and forth between processed and whole foods and have our weight stay the same. It is not a weakness. It is not a flaw. It is chemical - in my opinion.

I recognize this in myself. Because I live in such a tiny world - I am a good science experiment.

And I am here to say - that the rest of ME being a constant (exercise, sleep, low stress level, daily routine, healthy, etc) add processed and BING - my chemical thing kicks in and I struggle with food.

My struggle might be more subtle than other's struggle - but it is definitely there.

What you are going through just "shows" more - because you now have a smaller body.

It was always there (in my opinion).

It is like salt water. Dump salt in a hot tub full of water - not much impact - dump salt in a bath tub - more impact - dump salt in a big bucket - more yet - dump salt in a glass - lots of impact.

7:42 AM  

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