The scale doesn't tell the whole story!

I thought I had a really good week last week. I did pretty well with my eating. I got in lots of exercise.  I was hoping to see a really good loss on the scale when I weighed in yesterday. Instead, I saw a loss of 6/10 of a pound. 

I have to admit, I was discouraged at first. I was hoping for more: at least two pounds, maybe three.  I was at my lowest weight in 20 years before Christmas, but with some holiday excess, I gained about 5 pounds back. I had hoped those five pounds would finally be gone, but they are not going without a fight. 

When I had some time to reflect during the day, I thought about how far I’ve come, and came to the conclusion that the scale shouldn’t be my only means of judging how “good” a week was. I have a tendency to get discouraged with my weight loss. I see the lumps and bumps of the weight that I still need to lose, and think that I’m still in awful shape. That kind of thinking even sneaks into my dreams. I dreamed that I found an old pair of size 24 pants and held them up in front of me, expecting to see a huge change, but they were only a little bigger than what I was wearing.  I know that’s not true. ( LOL, my dreams are very rarely true. I also dreamed that my brother was raising pink, blue and white sheep in a second-story bedroom closet.)  There is a big change from the size 14 jeans I can fit in now, and the size 24 I was wearing in 2009. I know that it’s a big success story that I am down 81 pounds from my highest weight, and only have 27 pounds left to lose. Having mean old Mr. Scale tell me that I lost less than a pound this week, when I tried so hard, makes me think that I need to look at my success from different angles. 

• I’m getting faster. Before I started losing weight, it took me over an hour to go for a 3-mile walk. I’ve got it down to 41 minutes, and that number has been dropping steadily as I continue to train for the triathlon.
• I’m getting stronger. This week, I only had about 20 minutes to get in a workout, so I did a quick swing workout with my kettlebell. My 35-pound kettlebell. Now, that was an intense workout! I did 180 swings with the 35-pounder,  then switched down to 25 pounds for the next 110 swings, and finished up the last 30 swings with the 35-pounder again.  I never could have done that a year ago. I am extremely grateful to Alysia Gadson at LiveFit Revolution for getting me hooked on kettlebells!
• My measurements are changing. Sometimes when the scale doesn’t show it, I’m still losing inches. If I need a dose of encouragement, all I need to do is pull out the tape measure.
• My clothes are fitting differently. Even though my weight hasn’t changed all that much since November, jeans that were snug then are loose now. I’m going to need to do another closet purge soon, where I pull out the clothes that are too big! 

Mean old Mr. Scale did his best to discourage me this week, but I won’t let him win. I’m going to keep on doing what I’m doing, because I’m making healthy changes and feeling great!