I've (supposedly) lost 10 lbs this month - why does it mentally feel like I'm on a permenant plateau? It feels like I'm in a constant battle with the scale, since it doesn't want to give me and obvious readings (my digital bathroom scale appears to have broken, and the doctor-style beam scale at the gym seems to change +- 10-20 lbs. depending on how you stand on it, where you stand, which way you lean, whether you have your arm up or not, etc.), and the head-games are making me weary.
And while my shape is changing (according to the tape measure), my pants haven't seem to have gotten any bigger in the last 4 weeks, and those ketone strips tell me I'm not metabolising any fat. :-(
I work out 3+ times a week (usually 3), 40 minutes on the elliptical, treadmill or stair-master, I weight train upper or lower body (on alternating work-out days) with weights, I try to swim 10 laps a week (usually all at once), and my calorie intake is averaging 1200 a day. I increased my nuts/good-fat, since my skin was getting dry, and replaced breakfast with a protein shake, since I wasn't getting enough protein/nutrients.
Everything says I'm doing it right, and I should be counting it all as success, but why do I feel like I'm in a permenant fight with my weight? Am I just impatient?
I think part of why I slipped in the first place and let a lot of the weight come back, is because I felt exactly like this. Depressed, frustrated, and weary of living like a monk. It felt like I'd always be at 185 and nothing I did was making me go less. I got down to 185, and stayed there for 5 years... the only time I went lower was when I stopped working out (and that was just a weight loss from muscle atrophy, I imagine). I just feel like I'm failing, even though I shouldn't.
Could somebody give me a kick in the pants? Does anyone else ever feel like they're failing even when they're not?
--Janis
5'10", 30 years old, currently somewhere around 223 lbs