I'm depressed.

I am a comfort food eater and it has taken a lot of willpower to NOT eat when I'm upset. Every Monday I get upset because my weigh-in doesn't reflect the hard work I've been doing. I lost 3.5 pounds last week, but because I went off-plan for one freaking evening (3 margaritas and an order of nachos w/cheese) the 3.5 pounds came right back.

PLUS, my DH and I had a falling out yesterday and I'm upset. I want so bad to dive into a bag of chex mix or go through Taco Bell...

I'm being good and having a cup of chicken broth...but I'm ready to cry.

Don't cry sweetie! I'm not a comfort eater, I just love to eat! Sometimes i get bored so I eat. Not too much anymore though. But I don't think you could have gained 3.5 lbs in one night! I thought I gained weight a few times, but days later it was down again. I bet you're bloated or gassy! Just keep checking. And let that stubborn scale motivate you to watch what you eat! I messed up and ate a taco salad from Hardee's. Believe me, it was hardly a salad. We're talking meat, cheese, beans, and sour cream! My husband gave it me because they put tomatoes on it and he hates tomatoes. So, of course I ate it, along with what I was already planning to eat that night!

Don't worry your self to death, and if you ever need to vent or to cry to someone, I'm here, and so are the rest of the chickies here. Cheer up!

Morgaine, don't do this to yourself. Don't allow your self hatred to overwhelm you. You are a good and valuable person, and your worth has nothing to do with how much you weigh. Nor with how many mistakes you make on your diet. You have to love yourself in order to be able to do for you, what you want and need to do.

Celebrate your successes! You took OFF 3.5 pounds! Hey that is great! So you ate some carbs and salt and now you have some water weight masking your fat loss. Does that mean that all that work was for nothing? I don't think so.

It isn't just your weight on Monday morning that matters. It isn't just one day of eating bad that matters EITHER. We can't be perfect people. We can't always resist EVERY temptation. And the good thing is that we don't have to be. We just need to be more consistent, more conscious of our choices for the majority of the time. You cannot gain 3.5 pounds of fat in one day.

That is a scientific fact. One pound of weight is 3000 or so calories. In order to gain 3.5 pounds of fat in one day you would have had to have eaten 10,500 extra calories yesterday over what you burned off.

How likely is that? It isn't. Instead what has happened is that the carbs, help you to retain water, as does the salt. That same water will go away in a day or two and your actual fat loss will show. Don't beat yourself up over a little extra water in your system, that water ISN'T a part of YOU! It is just pee you haven't peed out yet! Are you going to hate yourself or cry over a little pee?



Do you feel better yet?

One thing you might do, is something I read in the Carbohydrate Addict's book. What she did is to advise "weekly weight averaging". You take your weight every day, and then you average it over the week. By doing this you see your true average loss per week.

For instance you weigh 5 days and day one you are low, day two up a little day three up three pounds, day four down three and a half. etc. Add them all together and divide by the number of days you weighed. Then count your TRUE weight as the average for the week. And chart THAT number. You'll see a much more consistent downward trend in spite of any sudden spikes due to water retention.

Thanks, ladies - I appreciate the support.

I do the weight averaging and even though the pounds aren't coming off that great - I did go down a size in jeans last week.

The reason that Mondays are so depressing is that I'm part of a weight loss contest at my local Y and Monday is the weigh in day.

Morgaine,

There you go! The pounds didn't come off because your body dropped a size in clothes and it takes it time to adjust. You can drop pounds, then plateau for a bit while your body adjusts to the new weight and shrinks in and you get a size smaller pants, and then you'll start losing again.

Celebrate a size smaller jeans! I did this weekend and I have bright screaming green toenails to prove it!!

Sherry mentioned peeing away the pounds -- look at it this way - if you cried, you lost some of that water weight as well.

I hope you're feeling better about things today!

I'm feeling better today, thank you very much!!

Part of the problem yesterday was that I was terribly constipated and I know I was retaining some weight from that. Finally, my system sorted itself out in the early evening, so I went to the night-time weigh in at the Y and my loss was 2.4 pounds for the week. I was so worried that I was going to gain weight for the third week in a row. I was the only person on my team of four people that was putting weight on. It was getting very frustrating.

But, I'm back on track today. Thanks a bunch,ladies!!!

I'm feeling frustrated, too. I wanted so bad to throw my diet away on Sunday and eat pizza. It's been nearly 2 weeks and I have only lost 4 lbs. One of the reasons I liked this diet so well is that you get results so quickly. This time, it's not coming off so easily. I don't know why.

I'm glad you're feeling better and back on track! (((hugs)))

LaurAnn - were you doing some other form of weight loss program before you started this? If so, then you've probably already lost the water weight. The large weight losses in the first 2 weeks are usually water.

I lost 3 lbs this time around and the last I time I did the program, I lost 10. But this time I had been counting calories for the last 4 months.

As long as you are losing something each week, don't stress about the amount. It's a journey you are going to be on for life, so it's not that important about how fast you get there. When you get to the finish line, you don't get to just say well, I'm there, now I can do whatever I want.

This is just a thought.. I used to do TOPS.. I found that the "support" group, team games, contest things ACTUALLY made me MORE prone to emotional eating because i felt like i had let people down when i did not succedd.. I had thought that TOPS would be good for me because i am naturally a super-competitive person.. but it had the opposite effect.. made me more depressed about my weight when i did not do good.. and then .. even when i lost.. i wasn't overly happy.. ...

Maybe im an odd animal.. but.. at least im not boring..

Mommie