MS17: Week 2 Check-In

Well, another week of only stepping on the scale once. I can't begin to describe how hard it is to not weigh myself every day. No lie - I engage in a battle every morning (and occasionally at night) to steer clear of the scale. My mind comes up with all kinds of reasons why it would be OK to weigh myself -- 'It's at night, so it doesn't really count', 'I'll not log it, so it won't count against me', or 'how will I know how I'm doing if I don't weigh myself?'. That last one. Duh. Follow the plan and the scale will follow along. In hind sight, I think that last one gets me when I've strayed off plan and I'm concerned about the impact. Which, is all the more reason to stay OFF the scale. One day of extra calories (even if it's 1000 - which is a ton extra to eat in one day) will not result in a 5 pound gain. Likely, I may be up a pound or two. Most of it will be water weight and will come of easily within 24-36 hours. Why torture myself with seeing that artificially inflated number?

Why? Because I'm a flippin' control freak when it comes to this lifestyle change! I'm an all or nothing person. I give 'it' my all or I give 'it' nothing. It's true for friends, love, work, life. Now that I'm at or near maintenance (still debating whether that last 5-8 pounds needs to come off), I need to be able to balance rigid control with firm flexibility. Rigid control, when broken, may lead to a complete breakdown of my new lifestyle. It's what may lead to regression. Firm flexibility allows for a meal, or even a day, utterly 'off plan' without a negative whiplash effect. You just plan and/or accept for the deviation and maintain the course. I've preached balance to a friend of mine for a long time. She's all or nothing way more than me (hard to believe, I know) in some things. It's time I took my own advice. Strike the balance.

This week, I got weighed and measured with Renee - as always happens when my strength training routine changes up. I'm tempted to say "it's a good news - bad news report". But, I'm not going there. It's a good news report. Even though my weight was up 3 pounds from 5 weeks prior (at my last measurement), my total body fat percentage went down from 24.45 to 23.9. That's almost .5%. What does this tell me? 1) like so many other people/things tell me - don't get hung up on the scale. My weight may of gone up but my BF% went down and that's healthy! 2) I'm continuing to gain lean tissue. 3) I'm continuing to lose 'fat'. And, 4) maybe that last 5-8 pounds doesn't need to come off. At this stage, it's the body bat % that is important. It's very likely that even though the BF% goes down, my weight may go up. I'm going to decide on this issue of the "last 5-8" at the end of this milestone.

The new strength training routine is t-o-u-g-h. Low reps, high sets, high weights. 8-6-4-4-6-8-failure. Yikes. My entire body felt like rubber after the first workout. I like the low rep thing. Only having to do 4 of something - even when it's really heavy - is totally doable. The problem is lifting those heavy weights without a spotter twice a week. For exercises where the weigh needs to be over my body (shoulder press or chest press), I have to cut back on the weight when going it alone. Other than that, I like the routine (after one day!).

This week:
+1.6 pounds for the week
+0.6 pounds for the milestone
-99.8 pounds total

I easily met my exercise goal - getting in 6 days for a total of 395 minutes.

Until later . . .

Think Smart. East Well. Move More.