I'm a day early, but I'm going camping until tomorrow! I'll miss you guys! Be good! Love, J~
When you choose a goal by a finite date are you setting yourself up for failure? Let's take a minute.
You've set your sights on a New Year's Eve goal, but things aren't going as smoothly as you'd hoped. Maybe your pinky bloated and you're up a little bit. Or you can't understand why you're shrinking in your pants but not on the scale. Or you don't know how you could posssibly make a goal if you have to lose 5 pounds a week until the end of the challenge to do it, especially as weight loss has dropped off.
Take a minute to survey yourself.
Do any of these apply to you?
If so, let's discuss them, and what we can do to change our thinking so as to not set ourselves up for a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure based on these numbers we have staring us in the face, ready to give us the biggest raspberry we've ever had.
1. I lost a lot of weight on induction, but induction stall is a killer. Losing weight isn't linear, as moochiecat aptly states in her thread by the same name. We lose weight, our bodies readjust, then we lose more weight. The readjustment is what is also known as a 'stall'... I prefer ' body readjustment'. It sounds less negative than a stall and more like you're having your chassis lifted. Afterall, what is a stall? It sounds like you're in a public bathroom praying for more toilet paper.
2. Exercise is a must, but I want to wait to exercise... we all know muscle mass weighs more than fat. We also know this can, at times, create a st-- er, I mean a 'body readjustment'! Still, starting NOW to some degree inhibits the weight gain due to muscle LATER. If you recently started exercising, good for you! Give yourself 2 months before you are in excellent shape, and allow your body time to adjust to your new muscle mass. If you haven't started exercising yet, get on it. Bring it. You won't regret it.
3. I lost 47 pounds last week and this week all I lost was my bellybutton lint! Let's be real here, you thinning minnies. We all know that this isn't a Ron Popeil commercial for hair loss or weight loss. Yes, it's awesome when we get to be too used to dropping a pound or more a day for several consecutive days in a row. But how long can we really expect that will happen? Be glad when the pounds come off quickly, but be realistic when your body says, "Whew! Mr Popeil, I can make this vinyl cartop look like new, but I need to readjust my body now!" Readjusting means you are still losing inches even if your tissues are holding onto water. The magic is still happening! Those Ginsu knives are still sharp--look! You can still slice through a tin can and not ruin the tomato!
4. I didn't lose ANYTHING this week! Despite the tendency to panic, don't. Again, this doesn't mean you're doomed to fail. It means you didn't GAIN anything, and that your body is readjusting to the new weight. It also means you gained muscle (if exercising) while losing fat, and the two have levelled one another out.
5. I gained a pound this week! Muscle weighs more than fat, and our body can change the amount of water it holds in a single day anywhere from 1-8 pounds! Check your sodium and make sure you're hydrated. No use making your body think it's being deprived of water...that only encourages you to hold onto excess water. Things like this are temporary.
6. If I don't lose 3.5 pounds every week until New Year's, I'll never make it! That's precisely the mindset I don't want anyone even thinking about. Why? Again, partially because weight loss is not linear! Also, because if you look at it this way, you're setting yourself up for failure. "I can't lose 3.5 pounds every week. And this week I gained a pound so next week I have to chop off my foot below the ankle to keep up with my goal! I might as well lick this gravy bowl clean!" Nooooo, nononononono. Fuggetaboutit.
The point isn't to put crazy parameters on yourself to get the weight off. It's merely to give it your all, and being excited with the results because you know you couldn't have done yourself any better!
If you need to, take this moment to say to yourself, "Hey! I'm hanging in there. I'm exercising. I'm eating properly. I'm drinking my water, and there's nothing more I could do than I'm doing now to lose this weight. If this was the last 2 weeks of the challenge, I'd feel confident knowing that what I'm doing now is what I have been doing all along. I can feel proud of myself whether I hit that weight goal on New Year's Eve because I know I came really close, and I feel better than I have in a long time."
If you can't say these things to yourself, then we have to start addressing what we can do this week which will help us go farther in this challenge. Maybe you need to add 5 minutes of exercise a day, start keeping a journal of every morsel you eat, or drinking your water.
But get right with your thinking, and don't panic. Do what you can. Be confident with the changes you have already made, and accept that we will hit weeks where we can't add a number of pounds to our goals.
We're all in this together.
Your homework for this week:
a)Analyze: Do you see yourself in any of the above numbered statements?
b)Analyze: How does this affect your overall view of your goal (it helps me, it inhibits me, it does nothing)?
c)Visualize: How would you encourage someone else going through what you are?
d)Analyze: What does this tell you about yourself?
e) Plan for success: What is one thing you can do this week to help yourself work towards that goal?
When you choose a goal by a finite date are you setting yourself up for failure? Let's take a minute.
You've set your sights on a New Year's Eve goal, but things aren't going as smoothly as you'd hoped. Maybe your pinky bloated and you're up a little bit. Or you can't understand why you're shrinking in your pants but not on the scale. Or you don't know how you could posssibly make a goal if you have to lose 5 pounds a week until the end of the challenge to do it, especially as weight loss has dropped off.
Take a minute to survey yourself.
Do any of these apply to you?
If so, let's discuss them, and what we can do to change our thinking so as to not set ourselves up for a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure based on these numbers we have staring us in the face, ready to give us the biggest raspberry we've ever had.
1. I lost a lot of weight on induction, but induction stall is a killer. Losing weight isn't linear, as moochiecat aptly states in her thread by the same name. We lose weight, our bodies readjust, then we lose more weight. The readjustment is what is also known as a 'stall'... I prefer ' body readjustment'. It sounds less negative than a stall and more like you're having your chassis lifted. Afterall, what is a stall? It sounds like you're in a public bathroom praying for more toilet paper.
2. Exercise is a must, but I want to wait to exercise... we all know muscle mass weighs more than fat. We also know this can, at times, create a st-- er, I mean a 'body readjustment'! Still, starting NOW to some degree inhibits the weight gain due to muscle LATER. If you recently started exercising, good for you! Give yourself 2 months before you are in excellent shape, and allow your body time to adjust to your new muscle mass. If you haven't started exercising yet, get on it. Bring it. You won't regret it.
3. I lost 47 pounds last week and this week all I lost was my bellybutton lint! Let's be real here, you thinning minnies. We all know that this isn't a Ron Popeil commercial for hair loss or weight loss. Yes, it's awesome when we get to be too used to dropping a pound or more a day for several consecutive days in a row. But how long can we really expect that will happen? Be glad when the pounds come off quickly, but be realistic when your body says, "Whew! Mr Popeil, I can make this vinyl cartop look like new, but I need to readjust my body now!" Readjusting means you are still losing inches even if your tissues are holding onto water. The magic is still happening! Those Ginsu knives are still sharp--look! You can still slice through a tin can and not ruin the tomato!
4. I didn't lose ANYTHING this week! Despite the tendency to panic, don't. Again, this doesn't mean you're doomed to fail. It means you didn't GAIN anything, and that your body is readjusting to the new weight. It also means you gained muscle (if exercising) while losing fat, and the two have levelled one another out.
5. I gained a pound this week! Muscle weighs more than fat, and our body can change the amount of water it holds in a single day anywhere from 1-8 pounds! Check your sodium and make sure you're hydrated. No use making your body think it's being deprived of water...that only encourages you to hold onto excess water. Things like this are temporary.
6. If I don't lose 3.5 pounds every week until New Year's, I'll never make it! That's precisely the mindset I don't want anyone even thinking about. Why? Again, partially because weight loss is not linear! Also, because if you look at it this way, you're setting yourself up for failure. "I can't lose 3.5 pounds every week. And this week I gained a pound so next week I have to chop off my foot below the ankle to keep up with my goal! I might as well lick this gravy bowl clean!" Nooooo, nononononono. Fuggetaboutit.
The point isn't to put crazy parameters on yourself to get the weight off. It's merely to give it your all, and being excited with the results because you know you couldn't have done yourself any better!
If you need to, take this moment to say to yourself, "Hey! I'm hanging in there. I'm exercising. I'm eating properly. I'm drinking my water, and there's nothing more I could do than I'm doing now to lose this weight. If this was the last 2 weeks of the challenge, I'd feel confident knowing that what I'm doing now is what I have been doing all along. I can feel proud of myself whether I hit that weight goal on New Year's Eve because I know I came really close, and I feel better than I have in a long time."
If you can't say these things to yourself, then we have to start addressing what we can do this week which will help us go farther in this challenge. Maybe you need to add 5 minutes of exercise a day, start keeping a journal of every morsel you eat, or drinking your water.
But get right with your thinking, and don't panic. Do what you can. Be confident with the changes you have already made, and accept that we will hit weeks where we can't add a number of pounds to our goals.
We're all in this together.
Your homework for this week:
a)Analyze: Do you see yourself in any of the above numbered statements?
b)Analyze: How does this affect your overall view of your goal (it helps me, it inhibits me, it does nothing)?
c)Visualize: How would you encourage someone else going through what you are?
d)Analyze: What does this tell you about yourself?
e) Plan for success: What is one thing you can do this week to help yourself work towards that goal?

Andrea
up 5.5 pounds this week for noooo apparent reason.I don't know if it's pre TOM bloat or wat but I am MAD.I was soooo close to onderland and now look where I am.I didn't want to post any complaints before because I was hoping that the scale would go down but nope.it kept saying 207.5 every single time that I stepped on it,it was being so stubborn.I'm so saddened.
Now I'm afraid to let it out of my sights!
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