For The NEwbies - An Example of when to NOT Freak Out and get depressed

I see the threads on here quite a bit along the lines of I am not losing fast enough or the scale is misbehaving etc so I just wanted to give an example to show it happens to everyone.

Over the past week I lost 7.2 pounds.  I went on my trip to Detroit at 210.0.  When I weighed myself yesterday morning I was at 202.8.  Yay Me.

This morning my weight was up to 204.6.  Boo ME?  I only ate 526 calories yesterday whats up with that?  I burned 359 walking.

Friday I flew and didn't get my usual workouts in.  I did those Saturday and also worked in my yard Saturday night.  Saturday was a big workout day for me, I burned 1002 calories between those activities and stuff tracked by my Fit Bit.  

I only ate 509 calories on Saturday.  So if I burned 1361 and only ate 1035, how did I gain?  The answer in my case is simple, if two pronged and a little gross.

First theres Glycogen.  Mowing my lawn, bc of a large hill counts as both a strength exercise and cardio.  I depleted my glycogen stores and those had to rebuild.

Sunday was my rebuild day.

Also, i havent really had a good BM since getting back so there is probably some stored up fecal matter.  

The important lesson here is that if the scale stays still or moves back a little bit, don't freak out.  You don't always know what your body may be up to.  Its important to journal everything.  For me being able to look at the numbers helps me if I get a little depressed or frustrated.  It reminds me that I am doing everything as well as I can.  It also helps me rationalize, in this case, that I did not gain 1.6 pounds of fat.  With a calorie deficit its impossible that happened.

Now with that said, I REALLY WISH this hadn't occurred so close to ONDERLAND - My body seems to always know when I am close to a milestone, Sheesh!

Thanks for this reminder because I am a slave to the scale & like a dumb a@@, I weighed myself this morning when I said I wouldn't. Of course I saw another small weight gain but I've been sticking to plan so this means I just need to "stick it out".
Of course we didnt really gain that 1 or 2 or 3 pounds so I need to remember that the next time I naturally want to freak out or get frustrated.
The scale always eventually goes down...

yes, thanks for the reminder and the example...

I see you  all over this forum and love your outlook and common sense.  Thanks for the info and the snap back to reality.  I also just ordered a couple of books you had recommended to someone else.  This journey is about SO much more than food and eating.  The emotional side is huge and any success, failure, support or research you can use as a tool is helpful.  I am only 7 days pre-op but thanks to this website I have rea;istic expectaions of what is ahead for me.

tytytyty! posts like this have helped me so much. in the past i have been an 'all or nothing' kinda gal.  as long as the weight was continuously going down on the scale i could stick to the plan - but as soon as it started to stand still or increase by a pound i would get discouraged and quit.  reading posts like yours and then doing the subsequent research on how our bodies handle the rapid weight loss process, have helped me to handle these changes.  now, when i drop 5 - 10lbs in a week, i'm looking for the slow down or hault so my body can catch up.  doesn't take away the deep desire to keep seeing the scale move - but it definitely makes the transition between weight loss and body adjustments much more tolerable.

thanks for sharing! :-)

Thanks for this post. What I will say and I know I am in the MINORITY here is that I weigh mayslef twice a month, sometimes more especially if I have doctor appointments I'll be weighed and because I am not hoping on the scale every day I havn't (to my knoweldge) really had a stall and always have a loss even if it is a pound or two only sometimes. Now will this serve me when I approach maintenance or am at goal? Probably not, I'll be weighing more than maybe twice a week...but weighing myself every day makes me nuts.

 Different people have different needs.  I am an engineer with impatience issues.  I mentioned once that people were lucky I didn't put load cells in my sneakers, LOL.  It doesn't really affect me to weigh once a day - I would do it anyway to satisfy my own curiosity.

Some people get too frustrated weighing daily, so for them probably once per week is best.  The main thing is to develop the habit and hold yourself accountable to both your plan and the results.  The main thing is the slope, are you constant, gaining, or losing - not the individual numbers so much.

SO CLOSE to Onederland!!! Oh how frustrating. But I can totally see what you're explaining here (and trying to figure out what the heck my body has been doing for the last 3 weeks, stalled for 2.5 of them, then losing 2, then gaining back one and hovering for a couple days...argh). Seven pounds in one week is a lot. That's awesome! Good losses like that seem to require a certain amount of adjustment time (they do for me, anyway). You're right--you can't possibly have gained anything "fat" wise so it's got to be water/glycogen and whatever other things we deal with that cause blips like this. I hope you get to see Onederland soon!!!

*Like* Thanks I never really think about those things!!!

As usual, this is another great post.  I do/did the same thing.   Now in maintenance, I am not as motivated to keep journaling everything but I would go right back to it if the scale went up.  It always helped me understand what was real weight loss/gain and what was just my body being difficult.  As a woman of child bearing age, there is another component to my weight fluctuations and it took me a while to come to terms with it.  Only weighing and charting and then analyzing the results kept me sane (relatively speaking of course) during the losing phase.  I think the newbies would be smart to listen to your advice here and pretty much elsewhere as well.   Great job.