I'm posting a screen shot of my average weights, for my own record keeping and to explain how this process has helped me to distance myself from the data collection process that is weight.
The nature of the way pics post on this platform won’t allow the whole table, but the starting weight was 258lbs.
Hope my process helps you to look at your numbers in a kinder and more gentle way.
First, let me explain that I have lived at 220+ pounds for the last 15 years. Prior to that I had a few years in the 200-215 range.
I had seem “one-derland” of 195 pounds for a few days here and there, but otherwise I had pretty much relegated myself to being overweight and obese for the rest of my life because who loses weight in their 50’s…..and keeps it off?
No one I know personally.
I learned to average my weights over the course of the week through reading “Fast, Feast, Repeat” by Gin Stephens. And it has been a daily delight to see the numbers on my scale ever since. Even “high” numbers don’t bother me anymore because I understand the trend is what is important and I know now how to control the trend without regressing to “diet mentality”.
What I mean by that is that I’ve sometime found myself after a visit to a restaurant, or a celebration seeing the resultant bump of 1-3 pounds “Oh, I need to restrict for the next few day. Cut out bread. Cut out Sweets. Cut out…XYZ.”
Or conversely, “Oh, I had a 14 hour eating window yesterday. I should restrict myself to a four hour window today even though there happens to be another celebration tonight.” Or, “Oh God, look at that number on the scale, I can’t eat that pasta I made. Were are the carrot sticks and laughing cow cheese?”
Just kidding.
I’ll never eat carrot sticks and laughing cow cheese again unless I want to and why for heaven’s sake would I want to!???
Now, when diet mentality creeps in, and the residual licks of food guilt and shame and deprivation start to niggle me, I stop myself and regroup and say to myself,
“I need to eat what satisfies me within a reasonable eating window and then give my body the break it deserves to continue the healing and weight loss.”
Some days it’s tuna and mayo with lots of arugula, fennel, onion and carrots. Some days it’s bread and butter.
I decide.
Not the scale.
At any rate, in terms of physics, weight is just your gravitational attraction to the planet you are living on. You weight is less on the moon, and more on Jupiter.
It’s just a number. And it’s a number that now I know how to manage without being miserable.
Cheers and have a happy Thanksgiving.
