How do you not get upset?
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I also use the Happy Scale app, but I hear there is one called Libra as well. Seeing the overall trend is so much more encouraging and teaches me that the fluctuations are nothing to be scared of
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I always think "at least it's not X" and reframe it. Because one pound, no biggie.
I also post in a weekly challenge. Then when I want to get down on myself I can see clearly over time there is no question I'm losing.1 -
daisyfields79 wrote: »I've only been doing this life style change for a little over a week and was so please and excited to go from 300.2 to 289.8 in 1 week. I was weighing myself daily and decided to start ever 2 days, which brings me to this morning
when the aisle said 290.6. I really really wanted to see under 290 on my first week and did it by 0.2 lol o was over the moon but now I'm back to the 290's it just feels like a smack in the face. I know it's all in my head but that 1 pound feels like 10. I'm not giving up, no way, no how but I have to admit it took a lot to not stop for and grab a giant ice cream when I brought my son to see the ships. Lol I'm an emotional eater and knew if I stayed home I would start picking at stuff so we went for a walk. Try to change that emotional eating to emotional walking lol
You've learned an important thing about yourself.
Turning to food for emotional comfort is something you'll have to grapple with.
If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution.4 -
I was much, much more emotionally tied to the scale when I weighed weekly, because if it went up I had no idea whether I'd gained fat or was just on the high side of a normal fluctuation.
Since I've been weighing daily (and only ONCE daily for three months) I've found I'm not nearly as concerned about the number and I don't get upset if it goes up. I have learned so much about how my body loses weight that I don't care if the scale goes high if I've been sticking to my plan. I know the number will come down again, and I generally know how long that will take.3 -
There are a lot of things that are just as important or more important than a number on the scale...that number is only one measure and I don't let one measure define me or my success.4
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daisyfields79 wrote: »I've only been doing this life style change for a little over a week and was so please and excited to go from 300.2 to 289.8 in 1 week. I was weighing myself daily and decided to start ever 2 days, which brings me to this morning when the aisle said 290.6. I really really wanted to see under 290 on my first week and did it by 0.2 lol o was over the moon but now I'm back to the 290's it just feels like a smack in the face. I know it's all in my head but that 1 pound feels like 10. I'm not giving up, no way, no how but I have to admit it took a lot to not stop for and grab a giant ice cream when I brought my son to see the ships. Lol I'm an emotional eater and knew if I stayed home I would start picking at stuff so we went for a walk. Try to change that emotional eating to emotional walking lol
Give yourself some credit for making healthier choices! This is a long tem process, and once you change your mindset (easier said than done) to that, it will be so much easier.
ETA: you lost 10 pounds in a week!! That's awesome! Some of that will be water weight, and that's probably what you're seeing on the scale - a small water weight rebound. It's nothing to be concerned with. Your loss will probably not be as extreme week to week going forward, but every pound lost is a victory, so just keep reminding yourself of that when you have down moments and think you didn't lose enough.
As far as the weighing thing - most of the time I weigh several times a day, lol. It's kind of like a game for me to see how my weight fluctuates along the day and it takes away all the anxiety or frustration at seeing a 'bad' number. I weigh first thing in the morning after using the toilet, again before my workout when I'm at the gym, again after dinner, and once again right before bed. The only one I 'count' is the one first thing in the morning, but just seeing how daily activities can effect my weight at any given moment is fascinating to me. I've even been known to weigh before and after peeing just to see how much difference a full bladder makes, lol. It's not something I obsess over, it's juts part of my routine that if I'm near a scale, I will probably jump on. Sometimes I'm fully clothed with shoes, sometimes I'm not. I like understanding how the variables show up on the scale. In the end, I have no emotional tie to whatever the number on the scale says. I have weeks where it hardly moves at all and I can get frustrated in that I'm eager to see my work show up, but I KNOW that it will eventually it just takes longer to do so sometimes.1 -
daisyfields79 wrote: »I've only been doing this life style change for a little over a week and was so please and excited to go from 300.2 to 289.8 in 1 week. I was weighing myself daily and decided to start ever 2 days, which brings me to this morning when the aisle said 290.6. I really really wanted to see under 290 on my first week and did it by 0.2 lol o was over the moon but now I'm back to the 290's it just feels like a smack in the face. I know it's all in my head but that 1 pound feels like 10. I'm not giving up, no way, no how but I have to admit it took a lot to not stop for and grab a giant ice cream when I brought my son to see the ships. Lol I'm an emotional eater and knew if I stayed home I would start picking at stuff so we went for a walk. Try to change that emotional eating to emotional walking lol
There is a water weight cycle that many people go through when first starting out:
1) You lose a lot, including water so the scale goes down by a lot
2) Your body goes "Oopsie, I dropped too much water so I need to retain some to get back to a proper amount" so the scale stays the same or even goes up a little
3) You are reasonably regulated so your losses will fall into a good pattern
This cycle can take 3-4 weeks to get regulated and you ARE losing fat the entire time, assuming you are eating in a calorie deficit. Many find it better to stay off the scale for the first 4 weeks and then weigh yourself. The other thing is to weigh yourself weekly but wait for 4 week and take a weekly average. Chances are really good that you will be averaging close to your weekly target.1 -
What's helping me is doing the 10-day challenges and, at the end of the period, finding the middle between my high and low for the 10 days. I think of that as a close approximation of my "real weight." Last challenge, my day 10 was higher than my day 1 so I could have been discouraged that I wasn't losing. But half way in between the high and low for the period was two pounds down from the previous challenge so, to my mind, I lost 2 pounds in those ten days, which is right on track.
Here's my figures for the last several weeks:
Round 8/1: HW 274 LW 269.8 MidW = 271.9
Round 9/2: HW 269.4 LW 266.8 MidW=268.1
Round 10/3: HW 269 LW 266.4 MidW = 267.7
Round 11/4: HW 267.4 LW 264.2 MidW = 265.8
My daily weight bounces all over the place but this reminds me I am going down. I look at it daily to keep it in mind and remind myself I want to do another 10 days. I can do this 10 days at a time!2 -
I know what I ate, and I ate without being upset. I know what I exercised, and I exercised (or not) without being upset. A non-living, non-thinking machine producing meaningless data is not going to upset me.
Besides, prior to getting out of bed each day, I tell myself that I gained weight, and in the time I get to the scale I spend my self-conversing time speculating about how much I've gained, and I always guess high. The scale, being mostly accurate most of the time, never fails to pleasantly surprise me.1 -
There are different schools of thought when it comes to how often to weigh yourself. Everyone figures out what works best for them, psychologically speaking.
For me, weighing every day gives me better knowledge of normal fluctuations and what causes them. It helped me not to stress so much about a swing of a few pounds either direction.
If you can take your emotion out of it, this might be a good experiment....for a week or so, weigh yourself SEVERAL times a day and record it. This can show you how much weight can fluctuate just over the course of a day. It might help you get over an obsession with small fluctuations.1 -
it is SO FRUSTRATING to see a gain of a pound (or more) when you feel like you are working so hard and doing so well. hang in there! i have had so many ups and downs, but the overall trend is DOWN and I AM LOSING. i have lost 35 lbs. i still have a way to go, BUT i see the trend moving downward and that feels great! don't get lost in one weigh-in day. stay in there for the long haul! example photo is ONE MONTH for me.
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this is a 3 month shot:
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Because sometimes we may still have food in our system and not know. It has happened to me . Or it can be water weight1
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It's just water weight you're losing . It's like that in the beginning. Once you start losing fat the scale will be more steady trust me1
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I think knowing that I didn't eat 7,000 calories above maintenance helps when I see the scale up two pounds. Just... having a better comprehension of the mechanics of weight-loss in general keeps me from getting overly upset. Annoyed, yes. Mildly upset? Sure, sometimes. But then I can tell myself that as much as it's frustrating, it's also not real.
(Now. If I'd just come back from vacation, where all my meals were in restaurants, I'd consider that I might actually have eaten over maintenance at that time. Without a scale, without any way to know how many 'portions' were on my plate, very possible. But if I look at my diary and know my logging was accurate, I was in a deficit, and the scale isn't showing it? I start thinking Time of Month, water retention, one of those things sent to try our patience... Big thing? It's not real and there's nothing to worry about.)2 -
I've been there where I'm in tears looking at the scale. It sucks when it goes up! There are so many factors that influence your weigh in. So I started doing measurements, too. Where I don't see results on the scale, I see them on the tape measure! It helps me to stay positive.1
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Libra or Happy scale.1
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I trusted the process. If I didn't eat 3500 calories more than my maintenance calories, I didn't gain a pound of fat.
The water weight gain was just my healthy body adjusting as it needed to, and it was always soon outpaced by fat loss if I was patient and persistent with a healthy routine.
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »What good does it do to get upset? It is frustrating, but it is what it is and getting upset won't change it.
Maybe you burn more calories by being upset?1 -
notreallychris wrote: »Don't step on the scale everyday. Try once a week. It's easy to let the scale trick you. But tape don't lie. Try using tape to measure your losses and record those measurements.
This didn't work for me. It put a TON of pressure on "weigh-in day" and I felt bad about the entire week instead of just one day. Now I use a weight trending app (Happy Scale) and weigh every day. I get the normal fluctuations and don't freak out about a few pounds when the overall trend is right where it should be.6 -
daisyfields79 wrote: »When the scale goes up a little when your doing so good and it should be going down? I know water retention and that but I still find it upsetting this morning seeing 1 pound on.
I look at the big picture ... the general trend.
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So many times I have given up because the scales went up a pound. Now, if I know I've done everything I should have and the scales go up it doesn't bother me, it will come off. Give the scales to someone to hide them from you. Ask them to give them back once a week.
It's a long journey. Take a deep breath. By Christmas you will feel a whole lot better.2 -
Weight naturally fluctuates. Mine fluctuated all through my weight loss. Here's a 3-month trend where I was at or below my calorie goal every day:
I measure my daily success by how well I stick to my plan rather than what the scale says. Concentrate on the process and let the results take care of themselves when they get around to it. It's your trend over time that matters.
How do you read that?1 -
Each dot is my weight for the day. The black dots are actual weights and the grey dots are days I missed but estimates based upon the surrounding days.Weight naturally fluctuates. Mine fluctuated all through my weight loss. Here's a 3-month trend where I was at or below my calorie goal every day:
I measure my daily success by how well I stick to my plan rather than what the scale says. Concentrate on the process and let the results take care of themselves when they get around to it. It's your trend over time that matters.
How do you read that?
The red line gives my weight trend. Daily weight may spike due to sodium intake or any other variable but the trend takes longer to react to changes. The trend also makes it easier to see patterns such as TOM.0 -
How do I not get upset? I rarely weigh myself anymore. Sad but true. The scale messes with my head.0
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I simply got desensitized to the number on the scale from years of weighing myself almost daily. It helped that my main goal from losing weight was not the weight itself but my blood sugar numbers which was my main focus so I might have had a slight advantage in that regard.1
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HarlemNY17 wrote: »It's just water weight you're losing . It's like that in the beginning. Once you start losing fat the scale will be more steady trust me
Almost but not quite. What she's lost will be mostly water weight in the first week, but not completely. When you go into a deficit you start losing fat right away. The beginner whoosh is a combination of fat loss and water weight.3 -
Oh. I just get upset. I've thrown things. But, I have goals other than weight loss so that's helpful.
I also have a coach and a support group with his other clients that really helps. And my friends on here are honestly the best.3 -
Sometimes I do get upset, tbh. But I keep going.1
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I weigh daily and use Libra. Today I was 138.8 . My goal is 125. My trend right now looks like rolling hills. But each sequential hill is lower than the previous, in line with my desired rate of weight loss, and I have a goal date of end of October, 2017 (taken with a grain of salt if I keep up my current deficit). So I think I'm doing something right.
Fluctuations happen. But with each one I look at my diary and see if its what I ate, how accurate I logged, TOM, or something to ignore.
Patience. Just keep going.4
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