My Relationship with the Scale

My relationship with the scale can be summed up in the photo above.  This is my typical reaction when I step on the scale, which while I know it's unhealthy to do, is pretty much every morning.  So each morning, I shuffle from my comfortable bed to the bathroom, bleary-eyed, and step on the Scale of Doom.  Each morning, it provides me with a non-sensical response.  I mean, if I've stuck to this diet and I have not cheated a single time why is that thing not showing me smaller numbers?

I wonder if it needs new batteries, I thought to myself.  But that wouldn't explain it.  It works.  It's just not telling me what I want to hear. 

I panicked!

Fortunately it was Monday, which means it was time for my mid-week check-in with my coach.  I left her a voicemail during the hour she's slotted for these calls, but she wasn't there.  At four o'clock, I sent her a desperate email:  "I left you a voicemail this afternoon.  Please call me at your earliest convenience...I'm having a tough week."  My phone rang immediately.

"I have done everything I'm supposed to do," I said.  "I've been drinking water, which I hate, by the way.  I've been exercising, which I hate more than water and I haven't cheated a single time.  Why isn't the scale moving?  This is so demoralizing!"

"I can sum it up in four words," she responded.  "Put. The. Scale. Away."  She went on to explain how we all lose weight differently and some of us - like me - hold onto it.  "Look at your monthly numbers, not your week-to-week.  I guarantee that at the end of a month's time, you will have lost just as much as everyone else, but you won't have a loss every week."

Oh yes, I should have remembered.  A few years ago, I went on this kick about not starting my 30s as fat as my 20s and this is precisely what would happen: I'd work out like a crazy person and really be strict about my calories and have NO loss that week, but the next week when I slacked off a bit, I'd have a ridiculous three or four pound loss.  It was incredibly frustrating as I felt I could never put my finger on what was causing the losses versus retaining everything.  C'est la vie...this is part of life, right?

Besides, I've committed myself to this for at least six months. I'm not going to give up after the first week.  Even if the scale isn't showing what I'd hoped it would right now.

Now excuse me.  I'm off to whip up my breakfast.  Chocolate shake!