Quote:
Originally Posted by JerseysGirl
It took me five weeks to lose eight pounds. And one and a half weeks to gain all but 2 ounces of it back. I've officially gained back everything I lost. What is wrong with me? I can't blame WW. I did it all myself. I certainly cant go back to meetings and look my leader and the woman who weighs us in in the face. Maybe I really am incapable of losing weight -- not physically, obviously, but incapable is incapable whether it'ss because of physical, mental, emotional or other reasons.
Nothing is wrong with you, and you're not in any way incapable of losing weight.....
What you're experiencing isn't "abnormal" at all... it's not only normal, it's the pattern MOST dieters follow (most of the research trying to determine how many people succeed at weight loss - and success is often measured as ANY weight loss, even a pound - have usually found failure rates to be in the 85 - 98% range).
That never is publicised, so nearly everyone thinks they're failing because their success doesn't match the success stories we see on tv and even in the WW meetings - you hear the success stories, but often not the true path the success has taken (you may hear that a lifetime member has lost 150 lbs, but you may not hear that it took her five years to do it, or that it was her 20th attempt at weight loss).
A couple years ago, I was only managing to lose 1 lb per month, and I complained to my doctor that I should be able to lose at least 2 lbs a week "like a normal person," and my doctor scolded me for thinking such "nonsense" (I think he may have actually said a swear word instead of nonsense).
He reminded me that "normal" is to lose nothing. Normal is to quickly gain the weight back plus EXTRA to spare (so even being only a few ounces lower than your starting weight, if you get right back on track now - without waiting until you're heavier than you started - that in itself puts you far ahead of "most" people).
Even though you've gained most of it back, if you don't wait until you've gained more than you lost, you'll be ahead of "most" people.
So you can be ordinary and keep gaining until you're ready to try again, or you can be extraordinary just by choosing to get back on track BEFORE you do the ordinary thing and keep gaining. Do you want to be ordinary (keep gaining) or do you want to keep succeeding (because you haven't failed yet).
A lot of people don't want to hear the weight loss success statistics, because they say that knowing how feww people succeed makes weight loss sound hopeless. I think the opposite is true. We assume weight loss is quick and easy, because we don't realize how many people are struggling just as much or more than we are, so we think we're failing when we're not.
Weight loss is like running in a huge marathon, and assuming you're in last place because you see 5,000 people ahead of you, not realizing there are 25,000 people behind you.
You succeed just by staying in the game.
I've failed at weight loss for nearly 35 years. I've been dieting since I was five years old (and only ever gaining as a result). This time I decided to diet differently. I decided to make healthy lifestyle changes that I was willing to commit to forever, even if no weight loss resulted. And for the first two years, I didn't lose any weight - but I did maintain my weight (or more precisely I gained and lost the same 15 lbs for two years, which was better than gaining every year as I had done for 30+ years prior).
It's taken me seven years to do what I wasn't able to do in a lifetime. Seven years to lose 98 lbs isn't really seen as success by most people (My doctor says it's an achievement almost no women my size make, so even at such a snail's pace, he assures me my weight loss, at any speed, most definitely is an amazing accomplishment).
Regaining doesn't make you incapable of losing. If you choose not to do what you know works, you're not incapable of success, you're choosing not to succeed. So do you want to choose to succeed, or do you want to choose to fail.
I still have a terrible time sticking to my food plan - and my weight loss is going to continue to be slow, so long as that is true. And if I give up, even for a little while, I know that I will regain (and sometimes that happens, but in seven years, I've never let the backsliding go on for more than about 10 lbs - 10 lbs being the amount of weight I can easily gain with TOM or a few days of eating poorly). But if I can gain 10 lbs in three to four days of careless eating, it would be so easy to give up for a month and gain back 50 lbs or more.
If we treated mountain climbing like we do weight loss, we wouldn't survive it, because whenever we'd stumble, we'd through ourselves down the mountain side so we could "start fresh" from the bottom.
You do not have to start from the bottom, and you're never starting fresh - because you can't unlearn what previous weight loss has taught you. I didn't fail for 33 years. I learned a lot, even if it didn't yield the results I wanted.
You can learn from mistakes (even big ones) and pick yourself up as quickly as you can after every stumble, or you can take a nose-dive off the nearest cliff.
There's no shame in making mistakes, even lots and lots of mistakes, and it's no reason to decide to make the mistake bigger by giving up (because giving up at weight loss isn't just giving up on weight loss, it's usually accepting even more weight gain).
I don't know how vital the weekly meetings are for you, but they're essential for me (for me, it's TOPS rather than WW). I can succeed on a variety of food plans, but I don't succeed well on my own. I NEED the weekly weigh-in, in front of my peers, to keep me goal-oriented and accountable (otherwise I tend to procrastinate, putting off exercise and better food control "until tomorrow.")
In fact, I need the extra accountability in TOPS (because in WW, only the weight recorder knew if I stalled or gained, unless I chose to reveal it). In my TOPS chapter, we go around the room and everyone shares whether they've gained, lost, or stayed the same. My group also shares the exact numbers. Not that anyone pays attention to any but their own, but having to make a weekly accounting, has helped me tremendously - but I don't let myself be ashamed of having a bad week (even a gain) because I now know it's normal. I finally learned that all the times I quit in the past because I felt like I was failing, I was actually succeeding tremendously I just had no idea. I thought that "everyone" was doing better than I was, when in fact I was doing extraordinarily well. In a real sense I've "failed off" almost 100 lbs, because I never would have considered weight loss this slow, success. I was wrong. Slow success is still tremendous success, and I don't think I ever would have given up, if I had realized that.
So see your success and you'll continue to succeed. See only your failure, and you'll give up every time.