I really need some help/advice. I am getting really frustrated with the scale. For the last month and a half I will get down to about 293 and then I slowly spend the next week climbing back up to between 297 and 299. I know I haven't been perfect on my diet. I went out to eat twice for my hubbys b-day at the end of January, we went on vacation for 4 days and I gained 3 pounds, and I didn't do good on Saturday. I get really motivated when the scale goes down, and I'll start working out even harder, doing even better on the diet, things are great. And then for the next 3 to 4 days the scale will go up every day. When I'm not even doing anything wrong. I don't know why. So I'll stick with my program and for the next 3 to 4 days it will go down again, and then it'll go back up. Its really frustrating. When it was happening the first month I didn't worry too much because I was only doing cardio and planned on adding weight lifting to my routine. I thought that would push me over the edge so that the scale would only go down. Didn't change a thing.
I got myself so worked up about it that I made myself throw up this morning when I was in the middle of my cardio. Friday I was down to 294 after really working hard to loose the 3 pounds I had gained on vacation. I weighed myself Sat and I was 297 all of a sudden. It was just so frustrating that I cheated. So to make up for it yesterday I did really good. I weighed myself today and I'm 299. I just dont get it... I'm willing to take any advice you have. This is my current routine -
Mon/Wed/Fri - 100 crunches on an exercise ball, 30 minutes of cardio on the ellipticle (burning about 450 calories), 30 minutes of weight lifting. Tuesdays I go grocery shopping/run errands. Thursdays I do laundry/clean the house. (I work evenings so I only have the morning to get things done) I have been trying to eat 1800 calories a day. I choose this number because I dieted before and lost 50 lbs by eating 1500 calories, but I was HUNGRY all the time. Plus with my weight being so high I should be burning off at least 3000 calories a day just by doing nothing. I have been fluctuating between 293 and 299 for about 6 weeks up and down... I started at 306...

Okay, well this is getting really long... sorry
Amanda

The only advice I have is this. Don't give up. Don't use JUST the scale. Measure yourself, find a tight pair of jeans or pants that you can barely fit into, use those to measure progress. Weighing yourself throughout the day will drive you insane. If you must weigh everyday, do it once, first thing in the morning, then don't do it again. Use one day as your weigh in day. Try a weekly average maybe, I know some ladies do that, weigh every day, then average it out. Understand the human body is resistant to change. It may not be at its best where its at weight and health wise, but it is comfortable here. It's up to you to force the change. That means you stick to the program, every single day. Regardless of what that scale says. That means you make time to work out, even if its only a quick walk after dinner, its more than it was before you started. This is for a lifetime, someone, JillyBean I think, said this "You need to wrap your brain around the fact, this is for the REST OF YOUR LIFE" If your plan leaves you hungry and grumpy, ditch that and find what works for you. Mines a mix of a vegan and Atkins/SB. Makes sense? LOL. Drink you water. I can not emphasize that enough, especially in winter. Yes we all get liquid from fruits and veggies we eat, but your body needs water. You can do this, if you just do it one step, one snack, one meal one day at a time. The future will get here soon enough. Just worry about THIS MINUTE.

Hi Amanda,

The same thing happens to me when I weight myself everyday, it´s normal for the weight to go up and down, depending on a set of different factors. So what I do is I hide the scale and only weight myself on mondays, that way you can access a little better how you´re evolving, and also give yourself a break... at least for me it´s important to try not to think about my diet all the time... and this should be a slow and healthy process, so please don´t work yourself out until you´re sick... this is a marathon, not a race ! and YOU CAN DO IT !!!

What plan are you following ?

Think about how much happier you get when the weight is coming off, think about all the things you would like to do when you get to the desired weight... and try doing the exercize of thinking before you eat, it´s not worth it, the effects of the confort food in the long run are only harmful...

So put down the cookies !!!!! and every time you feel like eating them think about it, and before you eat it, you can vent over here... this can be your confort medicine !

Good luck !!!

I never weigh myself more than once a day. When I first started my diet I weighed myself only once a week. And everytime I weighed myself for the first 3 weeks I went down. It was so awesome. I was down from 306 to 293. Then the 4th week all of a sudden I was up to 297. I just couldn't believe it so I went out and bought myself a new weight watchers scale. It said the same number. 297. So I just pushed through it, and after 4-5 days I was back down to 293. Ever since that week my body has been doing the same thing... down to 293, back up to 297-299. I ALWAYS drink 64 ounces of water a day... I make sure to do that. I think thats the easiest goal to achieve. I've always drank a lot of water, even as a child I never really liked soda. Obviously I know that I could have gained a little weight by building muscle, and I know that weight naturally fluctuates a few pounds. Like I said, I've had a few days where I haven't been as good as I could have, but now its been 6 weeks of this... 6! I keep thinking every time the scale goes back down that this will be the time it's not going to go back up, but it does... every time.... now I'm to the point where I'm on the scale every morning and I'm getting really stressed out about it. I even did an extra workout on Saturday to try to push me over the edge....

Well thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it!

WELCOME!

I agree with what everyone said. I would go one step further to say that you need to be completely honest with yourself about what you are putting into your body, no one will know but you obviously, but just the same. If you think you have been a bit off track or if you think you have been good.. either way I would recommend you start a "Health Journal." Journal what you ate, when you ate it, how much you ate (even a bite), and even go so far as to write down why you ate it...were you bored, actually hungry, etc. If you think you are hungry, wait a while, do something else, and if you are still hungry and it is truly feelings of bodily hunger then have something to eat.. Track your exercise too. Use any excuse to move.

You can do this just stick with it.

****I would recommend taking a peek at FITDAY.COM. I don't want to sound like an advertisement but the website is Free and you can input your food and exercise and get reports for calories burned/ versus/ calorie intake and so on. Just a thought...

Well thanks for all the advice... and by the way I did put down the girlscout cookies... after about 5 of them I realized they weren't going to help anything. I did try fitday for a while, but found it too time consuming to go through all the lists of food just to find what I ate. I do write down everything I ate and all the calories. Thats how I keep track of my daily total. Here's what I decided... I am just going to have to cut some more calories. Down to 1500. Its the only thing I can think of... and I did 1500 before and it worked. I didn't enjoy it, but I'll get used to it again I guess. Thanks Again! This support forum is truly invaluable to me... and so inspiring!
Amanda

Amanda -- Don't give up on 1800 calories yet -- from what you've said, you're actually eating MORE than that on average, right?? 1800 is when you're "good" but then you go off plan and eat MORE right??

Patience patience patience.
Consistency consistency consistency
Forgiveness forgiveness forgiveness

You need all three of these above to move forward.

Remember, you need to know that the scale doesn't just measure your fat, but all of you. What if you gained a little muscle from weight lifting! Then the scale looks like it went up but you've achieved something! What if it's water retention -- which for many of us causes great fluctuation! You need other tools to measure success as someone else said.

If you DO go off track, write it down, forgive yourself, and then get back on track! You learned an important lesson when you realized the cookies don't help!

Be honest with yourself about what you are eating -- right it ALL down. After all, your body knows you ate those cookies and counts that in your daily allocation, whether you write it down or not!

WYLLENN...You always have such great advice, and I love reading your posts, because I get so much insight out of them, thanks again!!!

Thanks, Michelle!!

It sounds like day-to-day variations in the scale are very stressful to you. Remember, it's probably impossible to gain 3 pounds of fat in 1 day, or 5 pounds of fat in 3 days!

What we do on one day has pretty much no meaningful influence on the scale the NEXT immediate day. Eat a ton, and the next day might show a gain...but it's not all going to fat; some of it will be the weight of the food still going through your system!

Try to trust yourself and your body. Daily weights are always going to fluctuate up and down—take a look at the Fitdays of some of 3FC's maintainers to see for yourself. Taking one-day fluctuations upwards as some kind of failure on your part will lead to madness.

Probably a way you can learn to trust your plan and your body more would be to hold back on those daily urges and just weigh once a week, or even every two.

I agree with Wyllenn - don't drop your calories just yet. Your exercise routine looks wonderful. And I think that if you just follow your plan and keep your calories at the 1800 per day you will see a loss. Unfortunately it sounds like you've had several bad days you've exceeded your daily 1800 calorie goal and that is helping to push the scales up. Take it one day at a time - if you happen to have another bad day and go over your calories quota then consume less calories the next day to make up for it.

Good luck!
Melissa

well thanks for all the great advice. I've spent a good portion of my day on this website and it has really inspired me. I've come to a lot of conclusions and because of it tomorrow will be a new day for me. A new beginning. I'm no longer going to count calories. I'm going to just eat healthy. I'm going to plan my menus out three days in advance and not stray from my plan. (I already planned out the next three days and they are between 1500-1800 calories) I'm going to continue the same exercise plan I am on. I am going to try to mostly eat protein, veggies, and fruits. Thanks for all the support and posts. I am newly energized and excited about this again!!! I'm sure you'll see me on here in the future and hopefully my ticker will continue to go down!

-Mandi

I wanted to add. You made a big step, by posting then coming back to read the replies. Thats a success in itself. You put the cookies down when you realised it was an emotional thing, not a hungar thing. Thats an accomplishment! Pat yourself on the back. I wanted to mention one other thing. Are you taking in enough calories? I do between 1600-1800 calories a day, with 2 low days a week of 1400-1600. You weigh more than I do, you need more calories just to function. Trust me, I was once at that size, my highest weight ever was 289, I needed more then, that I do now. For 4 weeks I was solid in sticking to 1400 calories ONLY, no more, and usually less, and stalled and stalled and STALLED. I was working the plan with food, working the workouts, nothing changed. My measurements did, thankfully or I would have thrown in the towel. I started investigating how many calories I needed, and realised I was eating to few. I upped them to the 1600-1800 range and started losing again. Remember, for us bigger ladies, we need more for basic bodily functions and as we lose weight, we then adjust our calorie consumption, usually lower. So, if you're starting out that low, you may be sabotaging yourself unintentionally. It may also be why you didnt keep the weight off the last time you lost it. I hope some of this helps, keep coming back, we are here for you, even when you need to rant about that butthole of a scale, we all understand.