Quote:
Originally Posted by blb1980
KAPLODS
I guess I am mistaken when I say the word plateau then. I thought a plateau was staying the same. I have not stayed the same. Today I stand at 239 lbs when back in Feb I was 231 lbs. What's the reason? Who knows? I have counted calories at some point but gave that up recently yes I will admit. I have had my tail at that Y exercising faithfully and still gaining and losing weight.
So I'm whining over 4 months? That's nothing?
I am finding out there are people who have gone longer. I spoke to a lady who didn't lose weight for almost a year she said.
This is my first time sticking to any weight loss thing for this long so I can honestly say I have never been involved in any plateaus ever except the one that I may be in now. I was steadily losing for 2 years and all of a sudden it stopped and now it's up and down on the scale. Now a days I start guessing what the scale is going to say... this week...236...238..237...235.....239. Oh lawd don't let me hit 240!!!
Thank you for taking the time to post your advice/input/thoughts
It is much appreciated.
I think most of us do see plateaus as "staying exactly the same," but I think that's kind of silly, because almost no one, even naturally thin people, even people who've lost all their weight and are at their goal weight, do not "stay exactly the same." Their weights vary, because it's actually ridiculous that we expect weight to stay exactly the same for anyone.
We set ourselves up for failure, by not understanding what success really looks like. Successful weight loss and maintenance isn't about reaching a goal weight and never deviating from that weight - it's about struggling with the same 5 to 10 lbs, rather than struggling with the same 50 or 200 lbs.
And if weight maintenance (and even natural thinness) isn't about "staying exactly the same," then how can a plateau be about staying exactlly the same.
In fact, "staying exactly the same" at every weigh-in (whether you weigh daily, weekly, monthly or at any other time) is actually extremely strange, rare, and unlikely. In fact, it's virtually impossible.
There are so many factors that go into what you weigh at any given moment, that it's actually ridiculous that we've come to ever expect (that our culture really teaches us to expect) to see the exact same number on the scale every day (or every week...)
In fact, I think it's kind of strange that we believe we evern have a constant or "real" weight. I do not weigh 289 lbs each and every day, all day. Instead, my weight varies throughout the day depending on a thousand factors including exactly what I've eaten and drank, but also whether or not I've gone to the bathroom, how hot it is, what time of my cycle, whether I'm fighting a cold or have an injury.... seems like a bazillion variables.
And yet I say that I "weigh 289 lbs." But I really don't. My weight varies as much as five or six pounds in a SINGLE day. And yet I still say that I weight 289 lbs.
For living things weight isn't a constant, but we act as though it is. And because our expectations don't match reality, we tend to get frustrated and think there's something wrong with us, when there isn't.
It isn't that we're not normal - it's that what we believe to be normal, really isn't.
It's like when my doctor told me that I wasn't failing at weight loss when I was "only" losing 1 lb a month at 375 lbs. I said "I should be able to lose at least 2 lbs a week like a normal person," and my doctor scolded me saying "normal" wasn't 2 lbs a week. Normal wasn't even 1 lb a month. Normal was losing nothing, or losing a bit and then gaining even more. Losing 1 lb a month was extraordinary, because most people (of all weights) don't do it.
Truly realizing that losing even 1 lb a month was "extraordinary" that maintaining a loss (that is a zero pound loss) was even more extraordinary, CURED me of frustration.
I don't get frustrated any more, because I truly understand that maintaining 105 lb loss (and way back when even maintaining a 20 lb loss) is extraordinary. Just "sticking with it" puts me at the top of the success ladder. Keeping off even a few pounds is an extraordinary acheivement, and yet we're taught to see it as failure. No wonder weight loss success statistics suck - we tell people they're failing when they're having astonishing success.
If most people do not lose even one pound per month, why do we see it as failure? If most people do not keep off their weight loss, why do we see "not losing more" as failure? Shouldn't we see "not gaining" as success? Shouldn't we see "not losing any more" as the success of not not having gained?
I think it all boils down to having no idea about what "normal" really looks like. So we think we're failing because we think everyone else is doing so much better than we are. An analogy I like to use is a big marathon where you assume you're in last place because you see 5,000 people in front of you, and don't see the 25,000 people behind you.
We tend to "hide" our failures when it comes to weight loss, and in fact we hide everyone except the top 1%. We see the folks who lose 200 lbs in 2 years, not the person who (like me) lost 105 lbs, but took seven years to do it (or you could say took over 30 years to do it).
Weight loss isn't frustrating when you have truly realistic expectations. Now that I know how few people succeed (if and only if we use "normal" definitions of success), I feel amazingly confident. I'm amazed every day that I've lost and kept off 100 lbs more or less (because of the normal fluctations it varies from 95 to 105).
What I find rather sad is how many people try to make me see the "failure" in what I'm doing rather than the success. It's as if people think that you have to feel like a failure to succeed, but I don't find self-punishment motivating. Seeing the amazing success keeps me motivated. I know that most women who start out at 394 lbs and nearly bed-ridden DO NOT lose and keep off 105 lbs. So even "not gaining" is a tremendous acheivement.
It doesn't make me think "well, I'm so great I don't have to do any more because I'm pure-awesomeness as it is."
Instead, I feel confident that because I'm doing so extrardinarily well, I can do even more (but if I decide that means I can lose 2 lbs a week, each and every week, and never backslide ever - then I'm going to be sadly disappointed and will fall into the failure-frustration trap).
We need to know what "normal" is before we judge ourselves harshly for not succeeding. And sadly, normal weight loss statistics are incredibly dismal. But I don't think they have to be. The numbers suck, because we're essentially telling folks who are succeeding that they're failing so badly that they might as well give up and at least get to eat what they want.
I firmly believe that most folks do not give up at weight loss when or because they're failing. They're just not seeing their success. They give up because they feel like they're failing and that the situation is hopeless, so giving up makes sense. In fact, we make giving up the only logical option. Only a fool would sign on for more and more punishment for "failing" even when they're doing better than most - even when they're doing FAR better than most.
Unfortunately so much about successful weight loss is "unlearning" lies that we've been taught about what is normal and what is healthy.