The scale, it LIES!

Failure to credit our successes seems to be widespread problem in weight loss. It’s a way that our brains try to wreck us. Push back.

Don’t know if this works for you, but I try to stick to basic facts. Fact is, you’ve lost 8 lbs.

Since your brain can’t erase that progress, it moves on to stage 2 and tells you it’s “not good enough.” The most common “not good enough” post here is the “I only lost X” post. You’ve done it with pictures.

I’m maintaining now, but I looked at all losses this way. Every lb, even every .2 lb, was a data point between me and GW. Every point needed to be crosssd off my list and was therefore worthy of note.

But note worthy is not earth shattering. A part of sticking to facts, is controlling expectations. Don’t know what you had in mind in terms of what an 8 lb loss would mean. But if you want to keep losing, make yourself a long term chart and bask in the glow of the downward trend. And work at keeping the trend going.

As to the pics, it’s clear that you’ve lost weight. The picture with your hair down is clearly better looking because it shows off your red hair and women with red hair are always seriously better looking in my book.

Last thing- just talking appearance, if you haven’t, maybe mark your progress with something new to wear. New clothes made a world of difference to me. Came as a big shock.

pinuplove wrote: »

Autumnhovey757 wrote: »

88olds wrote: »

Failure to credit our successes seems to be widespread problem in weight loss. It’s a way that our brains try to wreck us. Push back.

Don’t know if this works for you, but I try to stick to basic facts. Fact is, you’ve lost 8 lbs.

Since your brain can’t erase that progress, it moves on to stage 2 and tells you it’s “not good enough.” The most common “not good enough” post here is the “I only lost X” post. You’ve done it with pictures.

I’m maintaining now, but I looked at all losses this way. Every lb, even every .2 lb, was a data point between me and GW. Every point needed to be crosssd off my list and was therefore worthy of note.

But note worthy is not earth shattering. A part of sticking to facts, is controlling expectations. Don’t know what you had in mind in terms of what an 8 lb loss would mean. But if you want to keep losing, make yourself a long term chart and bask in the glow of the downward trend. And work at keeping the trend going.

As to the pics, it’s clear that you’ve lost weight. The picture with your hair down is clearly better looking because it shows off your red hair and women with red hair are always seriously better looking in my book.

Last thing- just talking appearance, if you haven’t, maybe mark your progress with something new to wear. New clothes made a world of difference to me. Came as a big shock.

Oh, thank you for this. I wish I was a ginger. That lighting was just wonderful. Someone from my real life pointed out the lighting and said maybe I should do these pics in the same room at the same time of day in the future. I now can't wait to get to my permanent home so I can do just that. And you're right about the checklist. If I don't like how it looks then I should use it as a starting point for some body sculpting.

Same room/mirror/lighting is a good idea. Also, many people (myself included) find the middle part of weight loss actually looks worse than the beginning (unclothed, anyway). As you lose fat, skin that was once full starts to be dragged down by the remaining fat and may also look lumpy and bumpy and feel very jiggly. But take heart! It gets much better as you reduce your bf% and your skin shrinks to catch up with the fat loss

I will second this for solidarity. The first 10 or so pounds, I felt I looked terrible because instead of the skin being tight, it was loose, but I hadn't lost enough for it to be visible. Essentially, I had just become "softer". It wasn't until after 20 pounds that I was really able to see enough of a difference in my body to make up for the, for lack of a better word, "squishy-ness".