Expectations...
 

I have been asking myself for awhile now, why do I expect to step on the scale and suddenly be less then 200 pounds? When I look in the mirror why do I sometimes expect to be a lot skinnier then I am?
I want to accept this as a process. Something that will take time, and perseverance (sp?) so that I will stick with it. I know that stalls are inevitable along the process, but when I got stuck before that's when I gave up. How do I change my mentality? Just by forcing myself to do it, like a habit?
I hope these thoughts makes sense. I love this board, because there are unique problems and troubles that come to those who have a long way to go...so any pearls of wisdom are accepted here!! :)

Oh I wish I knew. Sometimes when I get on the scale I have to close my eyes and wait a minute to look to realign my expectations.

If anything this journey has taught me it's to not expect much, just to take the results as a step in the right direction, whatever they may be. My body doesn't do the things I magically will it to do, but sometimes it does surprise me.

Hoodie - for me, it's just making myself do it, and eventually, some days, it feels like just observing a process. I've had water gains for the last 2 days and, for the first time in my life I've been able to think, "Huh. Water gains." and get on with my day, rather than being extravagantly morose for the rest of the day. I can't swear how I'll feel if I go up even farther tomorrow though :wink:

I think I can add to this.

First, my mental shift began to happen when I started to weigh daily. By doing this I started looking at my weight loss more impartially, like it was more of an experiment than a goal. When weight loss was the ultimate and only goal, I was failing frequently. When weight loss became a de-humanized experiment my mind shifted to more of those "huh" moments when I had weight gains.

Another part of my mental shift has come from telling myself I am going to be on plan for one year, no excuses. That took away some of the scale's power as well because it doesn't matter what the scale says, I'm still on plan.

As for seeing yourself as skinnier than you are, I had that problem up until about a couple weeks ago, honestly. I had an image in my head that I was thin and then I'd look in the mirror, or worse, a picture, and suddenly reality settled in. But now all of the sudden, my body does match the image in my head! It just took a lot of time. My inner image of myself has apparently always been of a size 10/12 me, which is exactly the size I was when I became pregnant with our first son. Coincidence? I'm not sure. But even though I have more to lose, I now match my own image of myself.

I know exactly what you mean about having a mental image that is smaller then the reality, until just recently I had that too. I now see myself as I am, and while I am not close to my goal weight I am not disapointed when I see pictures of myself. Does that make since?

I weigh daily too, and like Eliana I try to look at it as an experiment or my own scientific data. I am especially interested to see how my cal. counts and weight loss differs right before and during TOM compared to other times during my cycle. I recently went about 9 days with a few lb increase and then going back down a few and stalling for a while, I knew that the weight would come off and was able to put up with it knowing that I was recording the data for future comparisons.

These are all great answers/ideas. Keep 'em coming! :D

I was actually having those same thoughts today. I felt halfway decent in my black dress and sandals for work until I stepped into the elevator and saw my backside. Yowza that is some scary stuff! I know it is going to take time but every morning I walk to the bathroom and think that today will be different and I will magically look better. I just know that what we are doing day in and day out will make a difference one of these days and OUR internal image of ourselves will someday match the external one. :)

I know what really helped me for awhile was to graph my weight. I was a daily weigher and am getting back into that habit. When I was actively losing, sometimes it would seem like I wasn't making any progress because the scale was bouncing around. But I would faithfully record it on the graph and sure enough, I had a downward trend going. Sometimes it's just hard to see it when we are so focused on the weight part of the journey.

I really like Eliana's approach of being committed to being on plan for a specified period of time, no matter what. This really does seem like it would take the pressure off wanting the scale to move on a daily basis.

As far as keeping myself on track--well, if I had that part down pat, I wouldn't have gained 15 pounds since February. :) But I'm back on track now, and I'll keep myself there because now I have recent experience with what happens when I'm NOT on track. I gain. I may not lose as quickly as I like when I am on track, but it's sure better than gaining!