[Joil]

I'm on WW and I weighed in this morning. There was NO change on the scale, even though I did not over eat this week. When this happens I get so upset, I feel like giving up. I get all these negative thoughts in my head and I feel like this will never work for me. I will never loose 50lbs.
How do I stay focused??
Do any of you feel like this??

[lunarsongbird]

I haven't had much of a change on the scale in about a month. And even when changed are occurring- I have such hormonal weight shifts that it's almost impossibly hard for me to figure out if I'm losing weight or not. I've been battling with the feelings that you've been having for quite sometime.

Without the scale- how do I measure success? That's what it boils down for me. Besides- I would like to find another measure of success.

For me- success is measured by wellness.
You did not overeat this week? SUCCESS.
You didn't give up? SUCCESS.

For me- success looks a bit like this:
You didn't eat processed foods this week? SUCCESS!
You only ate when you were hungry?! SUCCESS!
You made time to move your body this week? SUCCESS!

For me, the scale is a terrible measure of success.
(I think this picture will work....)

That is February, March and May. From March to May...I only lost about 10 pounds. But if that is what 10 pounds looks like? I'll take it!
The scale is flawed. Your weight fluctuates with hormones, water, salt, food, digestion. (And water is heavy!! 1 cup of 8 ounces of water....8 OUNCES...weighs half a pound! Totally ridiculous.)


(I like this idea....I don't necessarily think you need to give up anything to lose weight (Okay...fine...I think most people need to give up processed foods and their desire to sit out the sofa all day....but you get the jist.)

[beerab]

Originally Posted by Joil

I'm on WW and I weighed in this morning. There was NO change on the scale, even though I did not over eat this week. When this happens I get so upset, I feel like giving up. I get all these negative thoughts in my head and I feel like this will never work for me. I will never loose 50lbs.
How do I stay focused??
Do any of you feel like this??

You can focus on 5 lbs at a time instead of 50 at once

Or you can remember your non-scale victories, like how you ate healthy this week Or do your clothes fit looser? How long have you been going? It looks like according to your ticker you have already lost 3 lbs

Don't give up, IMO that's what the scale wants!

Keep working at it, if you have another week without loss then you need to tweak your plan. Maybe add more veggies and pull out a carby item?

[racrane]

Be patient. I find my losses come in whooshes, four pounds once a month all at once. Weird, but bodies do what they're going to do. Take pictures, learn from mistakes and accept it takes time. I have been losing weight since October, but I am very proud of myself for what I have done so far, even though it's slow. I hope this helps.

[kaplods]

For me, I had to "unlearn" my belief (and it's a common one, so I'm not alone in thinking) that only losing was success and that gaining wasn't really any worse than "not losing." When the weight loss would slow, I'd think "this is pointless, I'm never going to be thin enough to feel successful, and if I'm going to fail and be fat anyway, I might as well at least get to eat what I want. If I'm going to be fat, it doesn't matter how fat."

What has made "this time" different and what's helped me the most weight I've ever lost (beating my "old record" by more than 30 lbs) and the longest I've ever kept weight off (it's the first time ever that I could measure a stable or downward weight trend in terms of years rather than months)...

Is simply believing that "not gaining" is awesome success, not failure - in fact it's more of an acheivement, worthy of even more celebration than losing. Losing weight is rough, but maintaining a loss is even harder (after all, most people are better at losing and gaining than at maintaining).

When I first started, I didn't even try to lose, I just focused on not gaining - weight loss was more of a reward or happy accident, but with my main goal being to "not gain," the scale stopped being a torture device. I stopped feeling like a failure - and success is motivating. The way we're taught to attempt weight loss is with a whole lot of punishment and very little reward. Most people don't abandon weight loss because they've failed, but because they don't see their success, or they've defined their success as failure. The average weight loss of those who want to lose is not 2 lbs per week - it's zippo, nada, nothing so if you're losing 1 lb per month, you're still doing better than most (so long as you don't give up).

See and celebrate the success of "not gaining" and there's never reason to give up.