Weight loss journey: The battle with the scales

Welcome back to my continuation of my weight loss journey series. Previous blogs about starting off your journey at home and getting used to your body here and clothing when you start to lose weight here

How is your relationship with your scales? Bit of a love/hate relationship right? Ever get the feeling you want to throw the damn thing through a window and into the sky and towards the sun where it can finally burn and explode and never have to tell you those vicious lies about your current weight? Well, my friend, you are not alone! Here is my story with my less than conventional relationship (not like that, eww) with scales.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU WEIGH YOURSELF?

This is a highly contentious area for me as I have always been told that you should only weigh yourself once a week. That is the standard, I mean that is when I think places like weight watchers, slimming world and PT’s carry out their checks. This provides a bit of confidence and consistency. You are meeting on that Tuesday evening every week (for example) unless you have been doing a UFC fighter style cut the day before the weigh-in, this should provide a fair representation of what you have achieved this week.

But I have also heard of people who do it bi-monthly, so there is less pressure on themselves to check in. I feel that method works well for someone who is in a good place and is just maintaining their current body. Lucky them…

Then there are the people like me who might weigh themselves at least once a day… Which is a bit more than what others feel is right to do so. Now I am not sure when I started to weigh myself more than usual, but it worked at the start of my weight loss. I would get up in the morning and before breakfast, I would pop on the scales and see where I am at. If it is a better (i.e. lower for me, could be higher for you… Afterall we all have different aims.) than the day before, I would give myself a little-closed fist cheer and try to make sure I would get another deficit for tomorrow. Now I was/am not being too crazy regarding that deficit.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET A LITTLE TOO OBSESSED?

I will not lie to you, I got a good bit obsessed with my weight. Though to me, this was for good reason. Afterall I was over 300lbs and that isn’t good for anyone. How obsessed do you ask? Well, remember how I said I would weigh myself in the morning? I was also weighing myself in the evening before bed as well.

Late evening workout

10pm running in Belfast

I would totally understand if you got annoyed at me and trust me, people who I have spoken to about this already have on your behalf. I have been scolded and told that that is far too much. I agree, it probably is a little too much. But I will tell you this, it worked for me! I would weigh myself in the morning and know that I had work to do with eating nice and clean and making sure I worked out hard to get that calorie deficit. Depending on the day if it was a non-run day, for example, I would get on those scales at around 9.30 – 10pm and if I was not happy about the weight I saw. I would get on my running gear. Put on the head torch and reflective apparel (hey, got to be safe in the dark) and hit the road for a quick 10km up and down the towpath. Then I would weigh myself again and see that number reduced and go for a shower and asleep and feel happy at what I have done.

QUESTIONS?

You have questions, I know. Why would you go out again?! Why could you not just settle for what you saw and put the effort in tomorrow? Why in the good f**k are you weighing yourself when you are probably at your heaviest!?

Listen I have no good solid reasonable answers to these questions, I wish I did. All I know is that weighing myself in the evening focused me and if I wasn’t happy and I will accept that it was often that I would go out and run or run to the gym for an hours workout. I would come back and be happier and content with myself, and the killer is, that for me it worked. I was obsessed with progress and chose not to accept it on a daily basis. If I was over what I felt I should be then I would be hell bent that as long as there were still hours left in the day that I would reduce that number.

Me as of December 2014

EXCUSES

Running a 10km is hard for a lot of people, but for me, I am comfortable there, it is a distance in which I feel I can put all of my efforts into and afterwards feel suitably tired so I don’t want it to look or sound that I was killing myself. 10kms are comfortable for me.

I have no time for excuses at this point. I know that this way is not the healthiest. I was possibly dropping too much weight on a weekly basis for it to be considered wise. But if it was working, I wasn’t about to stop and being sucked into that little rabbit hole is a bugger to release yourself from trusting me. So I didn’t and at the time I didn’t want to either I was getting confident, lighter and improving my running a lot! Why stop when it is working?

I know a lot of people who say you can’t be on it 100% every day and while I agree, I did try my best to stay in that 90% on the level of intensity. I had to lose this weight, it had to go and nothing, not the time at night or those stupid numbers on the scale were going to hold me back.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS TIME?

I will never apologise for the old method as I feel I improved myself as a person for doing it. Was it unwise? Yes. Would I say for others to try it? Not once. But it worked so not that I am on this train again I have tried to adapt the tracks for it to provide the same intensity, but in a safer manner and again note I am not promoting this way to you, I am merely saying what I did. Never copy this as it might and probably will not go the same way for you as it has for me.

My issue now is that I am not keen to go home, weigh myself and then go back out to the gym (I will not run past 11pm) So if I know I have been a bit lazy or I have had a late shift at work then you can guarantee I am hitting the gym, this is even if I have already had a run or been to the gym already that day. I want to end my day as if I have accomplished something in my weight loss journey. If that means working out in a lonely gym at midnight then so be it. I will do what I have to do to get there,

Am I putting all of the blame about my insecurities about my weight onto this poor little square? Yep sadly I am, but I can’t help it and I know if you are the same as me. Then you can’t either, it is hard to adapt or to change that relationship with the scales. You want to be a certain weight and what else is going to tell you? I hope you have a good group around you who are willing, to be honest in case things get too intense.

Get at your weight or fat loss the best healthiest way you can, listen to the experts you can do this, I can do this better.

Let’s do this!

Until next time…