The Big Picture

When I started on this journey with Weight Watchers on 3/2/17, I was determined to not make the same mistakes I made the other times. You see, I am a repeat offender. Each time I've done this before, I've let things get in my way and cause me to quit. These have included getting to the point where I thought I could go it alone and keep losing, letting the negativity of others drag me down to the point where I quit, setting unrealistic deadlines, trying to "improve" the plan by eating less than my allotted points, and getting so focused on details that I lose sight of what I've accomplished overall. It is my intention to expand on all of these in future posts, but for this one I want to focus on the last one.

The old saying about not being able to see the forest for the trees is true. Oftentimes we get discouraged when we have a lower loss than we expected, or worse yet, a gain. Sometimes we obsess over the number on the scale to the point that we fail to notice the other changes going on in us. Our clothing sizes are smaller, we have more energy, we sleep better, and the list of non-scale victories goes on and on, but that number on the scale keeps gnawing at us. 

In the past, I have let the scale trip me up. Not this time. As you can see from the pictures above, my weight has fluctuated over the past month with a couple of gains and a couple of losses. Looking at the overall progress on the other hand shows a steady drop from where I started at 324.6 to where I am currently at 199.8. To me the pictures resemble a roller coaster and a ski slope, yet they both reflect the same data. 

Weight fluctuations happen. They are just a natural part of life. Although it is not recommended to weigh more than once a week, I sometimes can't help taking an early peek before my official weigh-in. This past Wednesday night I did just that and I was up 5 lbs from the previous week's weight, but by the time I stepped on the scale at my meeting the next morning I was down 3. Any given weigh-in can show a gain, so it's important to take a step back and look at how far you've come instead of fretting over a single data point.

You can succeed at this, and you will if you will stay the course. Sometimes the roughest roads lead to the most beautiful destinations. Don't let the difficulties of the journey rob you of the joy of arriving.