So this week is the week prior to my period and let me tell you it has been a **** of a week. I'm seeing a counselor about it tomorrow, but I've pretty much determined that I'm very likely to have some sort of PMDD thing going on -- I got super duper depressed this week. And I know that probably has something to do with it... but I had gotten down to 146.4 as of 5th, bopped up to 148.6, bopped down to 147.8 as of the 8th (using a weight calendar app thing), and then the strangest thing happened -- I stayed put at 148.4 for four days straight, and as of now I'm at 150. I figured all that had to do with my period/cycle, because I should've lost something in there -- I've been staying on plan, the only thing differnet that I do now that I do before is eating my exercise calories that MFP gives me as a way of calorie cycling. But if I dont exercise, I eat 1670 calories, which according to MFP puts me at a loss of .8lbs per week. So, like I said -- I should have lost something before now, lol. I measured myself the other day and I actually gained a half inch, so I don't know what that means either. I don't know how I could've gained weight without eating enough TO gain weight.

I'm hoping with my period most of this will whoosh off, but I'm struggling so hard to get past that 146 line just so I can stay in the 140s! Why is this so hard??? I don't wanna eat any less. Maybe the councelor will teach me how to accept my body as-is cause I don't feel like working so hard anymore. I hope so cause this is hard, lol.

I think you are right, that if you don't want to work so hard at a few more pounds, than just don't!....I see from other posts that you are really busy and stressed these days and really, if you don't want to work even harder for a few more pounds, than don't!

you've had an amazing weight loss journey and maybe try for a few more pounds a little bit down the road when you aren't so busy or stressed

ive also read that weight stays on stubbornly when people are stressed...don't know how true that is, but ive heard it several times

I just wish I could look at myself and not see all flaws. It's like whatever fluctuation I have goes straight to my stomach and I always feel like I look bloated and pregnant and gross. Even when I was exercising! I took this week off from exercising cause I felt so bad, and I feel liek I really need to get back into it. But ugh. It's so frustrating because I've tried all different kinds of ways of exercising and I'm not patient enough to let any of them do whatever it is they're supposed to do to make your body look decent. I get burnt out on exercise so easily. I wish there was an exercise out there that I liked enough to stick to for longer than a month. -sigh-

I'm really hoping this counselor is good because I'm really tired of being stupidly obsessed and stressed over every little thing. It's quite literally giving me a headache, lol.

I think it's obvious that my period is near, lol. I woke up from the depression but now I'm just irritable as ****. I've run out of nutritionally decent groceries too so that's taking a toll on me too. And then I've got 3 different days of potential diet disasters - a date tomorrow, musical festival Saturday, and a big homecoming lunch at church on Sunday with the family. Ugh.

Once I was due to weigh in but I had my period so I didn't even bother. I felt it was better to wait a few days than weigh myself and become discouraged. I'm sure once you're finished yours your weight will go down.

Hang in there!

First - that sounds like normal (i.e. predictably unpredictable) period bloat, even the measurement. It doesn't making the feeling less distressing, but it'll straighten out soon.

Can you take a break again for now? You're not where you want to be, yet, but you can pause here. You know how to lose, and you can return to it at a later time. I think you'd benefit from focusing your energies elsewhere and in spending some more time accepting your body where it's at right now. The body image issue stuff will not necessarily just vanish if you get lower. Take your mental effort and work on that stuff now, so that there's one less obstacle in your headspace. Just maintain - stay mindful, but take all that mental energy and focus that goes into losing and channel it towards all the other things in your life right now.

I was in a similar spot back in January when I took a loooooong diet break -- I was tired and frustrated with the losing process (rationality goes out the window after too long!), and there were some other stressful things in life that really needed 100% of my attention. So I didn't stop making good food choices, but I stopped tracking slavishly. And I maintained pretty well (until this summer, too much socializing caught up with me in the form of 3-4 real lbs!). But by summer's end, I had freed up some headspace from other things -- I could really get back on track with losing, and because I'm in a much better place now, it does not feel like a colossal struggle as it was late last year.

There's more of you than just the scale number or clothing size. You've accomplished so much in this realm -- now work a bit on the rest of you.