When you gain it, but when you lose 1 lb it feels like an oz?

Ugh, I'm just being pessimistic. But really, when I get rolling and the pounds start coming off its like my nose is pressed so hard to the grindstone that I barely notice...I'm excited, of course....Its a WHOLE POUND! But I'm also pretty focused so it doesn't hit me as much as it probably should.

When I gain a pound though...I feel like a giant elephant. I did bad this weekend and took my eye off the prize for just a moment..and BAM! A pound gained back. I physically feel so much bigger.

I know its just a pound, and that I can get it back off in a day or two...but I feel so much bigger than I did last week. Last week I was started to feel kind of slimmed down, my pants were starting to get looser, my tummy felt smaller...

Today I feel swollen and bloated and every bit as fat as I did 15 lbs ago. I know that part of that is my body image issues (I know I have body issues...but its hard not to after being fat, at the very lowest weight chubby, since my age hit double digits.), but I really do think that there's more mass in a pound gained than in a pound lost.

Anyway...I guess I just needed to complain. I'm having a pretty rotten day and I've just been in a foul mood. Its pretty out of character for me to be in a slump, but I'm letting myself slump because...well, everybody needs to feel sorry for themselves once in a while. Now I just need to snap out of it and get back on track.

Gah. Thanks for listening. If you made it through the whole rant, you get a chocolate! No calories!!!

I think regaining 1lb. only feels like 20 lbs. when you are paying close attention.

I have gained 10 lbs. before without even whincing. I didn't even notice until a certain pair of jeans were to tight!

Our body percpetion radically changes when we are on a diet - it often makes us a bit irrational. We are almost hyper-aware of our body.

I think calorie restriction always brings out a little crazy in us - we think things we wouldn't normally think or worry about. No one in our "real" world understands, so we've formed a collective of crazies here!

lol, good point, Unna. We're like the Rainmen of food...

I don't feel much of a difference physically when I gain a pound but mentally and emotionally -- umm -- yeah. Feels like a ton! Because if I can gain a pound easily then I can gain 20 pounds just as easily. And the weight of that pound on my shoulders is a very heavy burden.

But I have noticed that the smaller one gets the more the weight gain (whether it be a pound or 3 pounds) can really make you feel different.

I love that saying above! We ARE the Rainman of food! LOL

I have to give myself a 5lbs grace either way (usually higher, of course, LOL) after 8 years of maintenance I would have driven myself insane by analyzing a 1lb fluctation on a daily basis.. I'm at almost 3,000 days of maintenance with the exception of 1 full & 1 brief pregnancy. That's 3,000 days I would have driven myself nuts!

That's not to say not to watch the scale daily if you choose, but the mentality of getting upset over a 1lb fluctuation really had to change. This is for life! Good luck!

lol, "Lean Cuisine. 250 calories. Its definitely 250 calories. I'm an excellent counter. 250 calories."

The pounds that are hard for me are the ones that center around my usual gain times of the month - ovulation and menstruation. I'll be steadily going down and then BAM hormones kick in and I go up for a few days before coming back down to the prized pre-hormone weight. Like now. I got down to 171 and then ovulation weight crept on. I got up to 173.8 in 3 days and now it will take 3 or so days to get back down to 171. So, the numbers 172 and 173 are hated numbers now as they were they btdt pounds.

Other numbers that are soooooo hard are 01 and 00 numbers (171, 170) for me now. Those pounds seem soooooo huge because once you get there you are close to the next decade down, but you're aren't quite there yet. Like now I'm so close to 160's yet so far especially with the ovulation weight thrown in.

I'm right there with you. So much of the game's psychological, especially when you're weighing on a regular basis. It's so easy to adjust your personal perception based upon those numbers, even when you know on an intellectual level that you probably don't look any different than the day before.

Like others in this thread, I give myself a bit of leeway. A pound up? It's probably water; it'll be gone in a few days. This is especially true around That Time, if you get what I'm saying, and I'm sure you do, because I have all the subtlety of a speeding truck. Likewise, I celebrate my victories as soon as I have even the tiniest reason to. A pound down? Whoo-ee, change the chart and the profile and do a victory dance!

I understand.
When the scale shows me that I am a pound up for whatever reason I automatically feel like a whale and I start pinching my stomach fat in an attempt to see if there is more of it! This is simply a frame of mind though, if I never got on the scale and saw that extra pound I wouldn't notice it was there.