I’ve been doing water aerobic classes for a month or so now, about 4-6 times a week. Today I branched out and did a Zumba class, and I thought I was going to die! But I made it through!!! tomorrow I’m gonna try silver sneakers class after my water class and see if that is more in my range right now. Zumba is no joke! Lol

I know I've missed a few @tammyfranks2 @cnavarro002 @amy_kee @Mellykay88 @ploddingturtle @urbansparx @JJKMO2 @cheezwiz88 @kwiris0328 all great things you guys are accomplishing. This group is absolutely phenomenal!!!

Sorry I've been gone so long! But you might have enjoyed the reprieve from my long winded posts lol

I've actually got a day in the office today after being out a lot because of my job.

anyway, you know how badly I've been struggling with a plateau for the last 5 months now. It seems that I lost my momentum over Christmas, and by February, I ground to a halt. The scale has been bouncing around 270 lbs ever since; some weeks, I'm up 3 lbs, some weeks, I'll be down 3 lbs, but I can't see to break past that point. I've been struggling mightily with depression, and this isn't helping at all; I lost 100 lbs last year and wanted to lose 50 more this year, but its June so I have to face the fact that that ain't going to happen, which is frustrating. And of course, being as I'm naturally pessimistic, I tend to see the failure instead of the victories - such as "you just shed 100 lbs; you shouldn't be surprised that you're body is slowing down!" or "okay, so you plateaued for a while - your life has been stressful the last several months, work has been extremely time consuming, and you've spent a ton of time out of town, eating out - so give yourself a break", or the best one: "you haven't lost in 6 months, true - but you haven't gained either; its a victory that you've managed to maintain when the last time you plateaued, you gained all the weigh back!"

But my objective side that can be much more reasonable and pragmatic and see the positives isn't able to communicate with my emotional side very well, so I've been fighting depression, stress, frustration, and a whole host of bad emotions, and the scale not budging isn't helping.

HOWEVER:

I'm starting to think that I HAVE been slowly losing, but that water weight may just be masking the whole thing. I say this because of a few things:

1) I finally updated my measurements from January and found that I've managed to lose 1/2" off my waist, hips, and bust since then - and in some cases, it was pushing closer to an 1". So yes, its been a big slow down, but it's still apparently coming off

2) This week, I dug out a pretty black belt out of my closet to wear with a pair of jeans that I can't seem to get to stay up. When I bought the belt, I had to buy the next size down because they didn't have it in the 3XL. But at the time, while I could get it to buckle, it wasn't comfortable to wear it, so I put it in my closet. I was shocked on Saturday to be able to wear it comfortably - yes, I was still in the first hole, but it was comfortable; I even wore it all day yesterday and it remained a comfortable fit, even into the evening (because sometimes as the day goes on, I get bloated and have to let my belts out a little). So that's a big victory!

3) I have another belt that when I bought it, I was using the 1st 2 holes on it; I wore it the other day and realized that I was getting near the end of the belt string. And I had to give my dad one of my belts because I had gone past the bottom hole - meaning, I had to give it away or punch a new hole!

4) I bought a firm style body shaper back in the early spring -sometime around March or maybe even earlier. This was a corset style shaper with the ribbing in it and hooks up the front. I have a horrible muffin top, so I bought it tight, hoping it would hold that muffin top in better than the regular, non-ribbed shapers, plus I get really tired of the non-ribbed shapers rolling down all the time (and they all do it!) Anyway, when I first bought the thing, while I could just barely get it on and squeezed into it, I usually had to take it off after an hour because it was just so uncomfortably tight, especially if I had to sit down.

Now I've only worn the thing 3 times now, so I know I haven't stretched it out. This Sunday, I wore it under a dress and realized after the service was over, that it wasn't bothering me - I sat through the whole service and wasn't uncomfortable. In fact, I wore it several hours because I took it off and it didn't bother me! that was a real eye opening moment!


so apparently, though the scale won't budge, I'm still having success in other ways; I AM still slowly losing inches, so weight has to still be coming off; its just all the stress I'm under is apparently having a profound effect on my water retention and is masking my success. GRRRRRR

But I'll take it - right now, I need positive encouragement!

Awesome @PloddingTurtle sounds like you won all around. Great NSV!!

@Mellykay88 awesome news girl you deserve a high five woohooo

I hiked up a mountain to a waterfall last week. It wasn’t pretty, and I didn’t think I would make it all the way up, but I did it! Two years ago my knee problems were so bad I couldn’t walk around a store.

@kwirs and @Mellykay88

Celebrating with you both. I can so relate to both of those NSVs! Love the new pic too @Mellykay88.

@tammyfranks2, so thrilled for you at this new reality.

I'm just 30 pounds down, and I live on the 2nd floor of a walk-up apartment building. I am really noticing the difference in carrying up my groceries...especially now that I'm eating all this fresh food. Healthy food weighs so much more than non-healthy food.

Hi, @kayish

Those are some pretty impressive victories. Applause from me.