W24, Day 1: Weigh day this way comes

So, weigh day.  First let me say that I have worked harder this week in both exercise and sticking with my plan than in months.  I only used ten of my forty-nine weekly food allowance points.  I worked, worked, worked that elliptical.  I stretched and flexed and sucked in my core in pilates.  I pretended I was Arnold ("I'll be back!") and I used weight machines to build my arm, shoulder, and chest muscles.  I ached.

I've also been trying to stay more active the rest of the day too, with cleaning, shopping (hey, shoppercise keeps the body moving too), walking, and gardening.  I'm trying to avoid the trap of the couch.

In terms of food, I've really been pushing myself to not eat the comfort things I normally do eat, though I had a good deal of tortilla chips on Wednesday and a soft serve ice-cream on Saturday.  Except for these two things, I worked really hard to stay on the healthful side of things.  Yesterday when I met with the personal trainers, they told me that I am eating too much fruit, especially in the evening (no fruit after 3 p.m....that's tough!) and not enough protein.

They want me to change my system of three main meals--breakfast, lunch, and dinner--and go to five or six smaller, protein-filled meals.  To be entirely honest with you, I find this sort of threatening.  It's a break with my normal rhythm of eating, which obviously isn't working that great for me, but still, it's a big mental change.  I recently read an piece of a book that was talking about ways of dealing with compulsive over-eating and she counsels people to give up their diet entirely to re-learn how to eat solely based on how their body feels.  I find this concept equally threatening.  I feel like I've been learning how to eat appropriately these last few years with WW.  Now breaking away from what I've struggled to master seems too hard, too scary.  I'll keep thinking about it, but for now, I'm going to stick with what I'm doing with WW, but modifying it to have a couple of higher protein snacks between meals to try to keep my metabolism at a more stable level.

All that said, I need to go back to weigh day.  I am at 207.8, for a loss of 1 pound exactly.  I won't lie and say I'm not disappointed.  First, this isn't the first time I've been at this number.  More importantly, I worked damn hard for that one pound and I feel like I put in my all time best effort and all it got me was one measly little pound.  Really?!!!  And alas, it's not due to muscle growth since apparently it takes 4-6 weeks to gain one pound of muscle.  Bummer.  But all I can do is try again this week, cut down the fruit, add more protein, and keep pumping away.

This picture helped me feel a little better about the small loss this week.  This is approximately what one pound of fat might look like.  So, I lost a soup can's worth of fat.  I'm still a bit bummed, but that helps me picture it at least.  Here's hoping for a soup can and a half next week!