Scale jumped up - need to hold my nerve!

gorple76

I’ve been losing weight on a large deficit for 8 weeks, but this week moved my calorie allowance up to a less drastic, longer term level. I expected some scale randomness so committed to 4 weeks of watching and waiting before panicking that it’s not working. I’d held steady (no loss or gain) all week til today. I’ve jumped up 4lbs. The logical voice in my head is saying ‘it’s a fluctuation, you can’t put on 4lbs fat over night, etc’ but my other voice is screaming ‘what’s the point!? Throw in the towel - unless you starve, you’ll never lose weight’. It would help to hear from anyone who has experienced this sort of thing and successfully continued on their journey by just holding their nerve and sticking with the plan.

Lietchi

I've lost 60+ lbs so far by holding my nerve while at a small(ish) deficit - around 350kcal deficit at the start, gradually going down to around 100 kcal currently. There have been times (like now) where the scale doesn't do what I want, and even Libra thinks my weight trend is no longer going down.

I just put my daily weigh-ins into Libra and my own spreadsheet and focus on other goals like improving my running speed, lifting heavier weights,...
That doesn't mean I don't get frustrated or worry that suddenly my weight loss will stop, but trusting the process has worked for me the past 23 months, so I don't panic 🙂

Lietchi

To illustrate my point, these are my weigh-ins. Only looking at the past month, it looks like I'm stable overall (with daily ups and downs), but looking at three months the downward trend is visible. That's with a very small deficit (50-100kcal).

gorple76

@Lietchi thank you so much - that’s really reassuring and just what I need to see. I’m keeping a journal and had planned out a strategy of 4 weeks waiting etc but still this morning the scale had me thinking ‘it’s not working! I need to starve myself’ which would inevitably lead me to giving up. I think I struggle to trust the process so seeing how your progress works helps immensely. I’m using happyscale which is helping a little but even that is showing an upward trend today!

88olds

Everyone has a voice in their head and the voice will wreck our weight loss plan if we let it. There’s a big part of our brain that doesn’t like change. Consider the popularity of tv reruns. What’s the attraction? We know the outcome. It ends the same way every time.

But I think our brains must hate weight loss in particular. The voice is not stupid and it is sneaky. It doesn’t just say to quit. It claims to have good reasons to quit. And claims to have evidence that our plan isn’t working. Or cannot ever work. Or that, even if the plan is good with a proven record of success, it cannot work for us. Sometimes our brains claim the plan won’t work for us because of our own physical limitations, like we can’t exercise enough, or we’ve damaged our metabolism or thyroid. Or frequently we can’t succeed because of our personal character flaws, like lack of discipline or willpower.

It is all nonsense.

Weight loss has 2 parts- eating in a calorie deficit and living with it. There’s a tendency to go all in on the deficit and try to beat ourselves into living with it. Generally doesn’t work. Weight loss is a skill set. It is mostly about problem solving and persistence.

A moderate calorie deficit is easier to live with than a drastic deficit. Just keep tinkering with the numbers and you’ll get it. Fact is that there are times when it seems easy, like we are running on autopilot, and times when it seems tough. That will never change.

To lose 100 lbs I had to reinvent my program about 4 times. But to maintain I have had to keep tinkering and adjusting. I don’t see that ever ending. I stick around these message boards because it’s a reminder that I have to keep my head in the game.

Never forget, calorie counting works. It has to work, it’s how our bodies are designed. Focus on the process. Weight loss is a byproduct of the process. The only way to fail is quit. Don’t quit. Good luck.

Lietchi

gorple76 wrote: »

@Lietchi thank you so much - that’s really reassuring and just what I need to see. I’m keeping a journal and had planned out a strategy of 4 weeks waiting etc but still this morning the scale had me thinking ‘it’s not working! I need to starve myself’ which would inevitably lead me to giving up. I think I struggle to trust the process so seeing how your progress works helps immensely. I’m using happyscale which is helping a little but even that is showing an upward trend today!

I don't know how Happyscale works, but with Libra you can tweak the settings a bit. I've lenghtened the number of 'smoothing days' to 28 days, otherise my trend is too 'spiky'

In any case, it's a good strategy to wait out 4 weeks, hang in there!

OnceAndFutureAthlete

I am with you on this. I am "white knuckling" thru a 5 pound increase ( I won't call it "gain") on the scale this week after
1. I changed my weekly loss target from 2# to 1.5#, thereby increasing my daily intake
2. getting a bad sunburn last weekend which I've learned causes inflamation and water retention.

The scale has finally started going down again so now I'm up "only" 2#. But my sunburn still hurts (and itches! ) so I'm continuing to write it off to that in my head. But it IS hard hanging in and "keeping the faith" that the numbers will work out in the end.

The chorus of "hang in there" and "trust!" here on MFP is really helpful, fortunately.

gorple76

Thank you @Lietchi @88olds and @OnceAndFutureAthlete Its helping me so much reading your measured, encouraging responses. I’m so wanting to work this whole thing out properly this time so that it works and is sustained. The time you’ve taken to help is really appreciated 😊

AnnPT77

Lietchi wrote: »

gorple76 wrote: »

@Lietchi thank you so much - that’s really reassuring and just what I need to see. I’m keeping a journal and had planned out a strategy of 4 weeks waiting etc but still this morning the scale had me thinking ‘it’s not working! I need to starve myself’ which would inevitably lead me to giving up. I think I struggle to trust the process so seeing how your progress works helps immensely. I’m using happyscale which is helping a little but even that is showing an upward trend today!

I don't know how Happyscale works, but with Libra you can tweak the settings a bit. I've lenghtened the number of 'smoothing days' to 28 days, otherise my trend is too 'spiky'

In any case, it's a good strategy to wait out 4 weeks, hang in there!

Overall, I think you give *wonderful* advice @Lietchi.

Ultra tiny, tiny quibble here: Gorple's profile says female. I'd encourage comparing body weight at the same relative point in two (or more) different menstrual cycles (like start of menstrual period, or whatever). That may be 4 weeks, or not quite exactly.

@gorple76: Yup, bodyweight is weird, especially water weight. After a while, you'll get a handle on how your personal body behaves, especially if you can tolerate daily weighing calmly. (Not saying daily weighing is essential, just that it yields understanding of the weirdness faster. That's not the only consideration in scheduling weighing.) Water fluctuation can be individual, idiosyncratic. You specialize in understanding *you*.

If the scale jumped 4 pounds, and you didn't cumulatively eat around 14,000 calories over maintenance (!) in the last few days, or move that much less (!), then it can't possibly be 4 pounds of fat. (You'd notice, y'know?) After some time (probably longer than 8 weeks 😉), you'll develop deep confidence in that principle, I predict . . . as long as you stick with it long enough. (I'm in year 5+ of maintenance, after losing from obese to healthy weight.)

Quick multi-pound changes on the scale (without *massive* changes in eating/activity) are water weight or digestive contents. They have to be. Fat loss (when generally compliant with calorie goal) is gradual, always playing peek-a-boo on the scale with the bigger water/food-weight fluctuations. It shows up in many-week trends. Muscle mass gain, when working hard to do every single possible thing to achieve it, is a thing of manyMany weeks to months and years.

Repeating: Quick change? Water weight.

One thing: Undereat, and water retention increases (from physical stress), fatigue increases (decreasing movement, reducing calorie expenditure), and more. If you've been losing well, and see a sudden jump or stall, ride it out, maybe even take a maintenance day (or week or two). Resist the "cut cut cut" voice, if you've previously/recently lost well, it's a seductive, misleading, dangerous, counter-productive siren song.

@88olds is brilliant, above, on the mind game. You can win it. Hang in. You've already said you know intellectually what's going on. Mr./Ms. Intellect is right. Don't believe the emotional screaming meemies.

You can do this. You're doing *great*.

ITUSGirl51

I understand..that’s why people give up. If you stick to it and cut back just a bit, week by week the weight loss will average out over a months time. I go for just 4 lbs a month. I’m 5’8” and exercise 1 hour most a days (walking and swimming), so I can eat a good amount and still lose weight (1600-1900 a day). Some weeks it’s just .4 lbs and the next week 1.5 lbs and some weeks nothing. Over a month it is averaging to 4 lbs. After 4.5 months I’ve lost 20 lbs. There were weeks were it went up a smidge and I did everything right and I wanted to just quit. But I’ve done this before and I know slow and steady will get me where I want to be. I have 20 lbs more to be to my goal. I’m not even aiming for the end of the year. I want to enjoy life. I will have days once or twice a month I go over on my maintenance calories for a nice meal out or I’m really hungry and I just eat what I want or if I go on vacation. Hopefully by Feb 1, 2022 I will be at my goal. The stress and COVID weight will be gone and my cute clothes will fit again.

gorple76

Thank you @ITUSGirl51 abd @AnnPT77. Your collective voices are thankfully getting heard Scale has moved down a little today but I’m still up over the week. But I’m feeling ok with it today. I write in a journal and I’ve just listed the facts (TDEE calories, my careful logging and eating in deficit) and I’m feeling like the scale fluctuations are clearly not related to me either overeating or being biologically different to the rest of humanity. I think my new mantra might be ‘i am biologically average’

Lietchi

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

gorple76 wrote: »

@Lietchi thank you so much - that’s really reassuring and just what I need to see. I’m keeping a journal and had planned out a strategy of 4 weeks waiting etc but still this morning the scale had me thinking ‘it’s not working! I need to starve myself’ which would inevitably lead me to giving up. I think I struggle to trust the process so seeing how your progress works helps immensely. I’m using happyscale which is helping a little but even that is showing an upward trend today!

I don't know how Happyscale works, but with Libra you can tweak the settings a bit. I've lenghtened the number of 'smoothing days' to 28 days, otherise my trend is too 'spiky'

In any case, it's a good strategy to wait out 4 weeks, hang in there!

Overall, I think you give *wonderful* advice @Lietchi.

Ultra tiny, tiny quibble here: Gorple's profile says female. I'd encourage comparing body weight at the same relative point in two (or more) different menstrual cycles (like start of menstrual period, or whatever). That may be 4 weeks, or not quite exactly.

You're right, I know that (heck, I don't even have a 4 week cycle myself 🙄) and I should have thought of that/mentioned it myself. Good call!

gorple76

Just a quick update (as I find it really helpful to see how things pan out in other people’s threads). I was still up at the start of the week and feeling a bit despondent. I identified a few reasons though for why it was happening - increasing calories, sudden heat wave, increasing exercise. I feel confident my cycle shouldn’t be a factor given where I am in the cycle but who knows. Anyway, yesterday the scale dropped back to where it was 2 weeks ago. Last night I tried on a few clothes to see how they were fitting. Many felt better, and I can’t really explain how exactly, but I felt lighter. Anyway, this morning I’ve dropped a couple more pounds which has finally made my happy scale trend happy again 😊. Obviously I’m pleased about that, but mostly I’m so glad I kept my head for once. Thank you all again for responding - it was crucial to my not giving up.

Lietchi

Great to hear the scale went down at last and patience was victorious 🙂

AnnPT77

Glad to hear it - thanks for coming back with an update. (I'm always curious.) I think it can help other people who might be having similar worries, too, to see that in fact things did come out well just by being patient, and continuing on course.

Good show!