Put down the banana and step away from the scale and nobody's going to get hurt!

Since weighing myself this past Monday, I’ve been fighting the urge for daily weigh-ins. My weight has always been unpredictable, even when I’m trying to lose weight so I really want to know whether I’m still headed in the right direction. However, as we all know, your weight can fluctuate daily and even throughout the day. Chronic weighing usually just ends up making us crazy and contributing to our stress level which…you guessed it….makes us more likely to stress eat. In my case, chronic weighing also is closely connected to my bulimic days so it's not a healthy pastime for me.

Until today, I had successfully managed to avoid my scale. I think what prompted today’s weigh-in was something I feel was a “cheat” last night. It wasn’t really a cheat because even adding it up in my head, I know that I was still under my calories and fat for the day, but for some reason, psychologically it still feels like I cheated.

I have been super exhausted the last few days. I think it’s due to finally (TMI alert: skip to the next paragraph if you’d rather not know the ins and outs of my cycle) getting my period after several months. With Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) you can have very unpredictable periods. When you go for more than two months, you are supposed to contact a doctor for something to trigger a period; I think they use some kind of progesterone pill. Often, I notice that when I get back on my glucophage or lose a bit of weight it will trigger a period and that is what happened in this case. During my period, I generally tend to have at least one day where I am completely wiped out, so I don’t know if the several days of lethargy I’m currently experiencing are due to the fact that my body is making up for lost time or if I’m still trying to adjust to an earlier work schedule. I think it’s probably the former.

Yesterday when I got off work, I went right to bed. I knew I had about ½ an hour before T got home and I thought that maybe I could get a little nap in before he got home. I had to work a bit later that night and knew I’d never make it if I didn’t get a little refresher nap. I ended up falling right to sleep, T came home and had received a new game from gamefly so he was happy to entertain himself a bit while I grabbed another half hour or so of rest. By the time I woke up, it was getting late and to be honest, I just didn’t feel like cooking. We could have had sandwiches, but T was moaning about that so I just grabbed the keys and went to our local Popeyes. From my earlier research I knew exactly what I could get without going off plan. I knew I was going to have to get rid of the skin and I’ll tell ya…I knew it was going to be hard. I tried to talk T into getting rid of his, but he wasn’t having any of that. I did manage to trash the skin AND the biscuit and just had a chicken breast with mashed potatoes and a corn on the cob. So why do I feel like I cheated??

Anyway, that brings me back to the beginning of my story. As I grabbed my yogurt, banana and fiber bar for breakfast this morning, the scale was calling my name: “Come on Michelle, you know you probably gained a pound just looking at that crust, and you didn’t wear gloves when you disposed of the biscuit…who KNOWS what damage you did!” Crazy I know; It isn't even as if anything I ate last night would register on today's scale. I realize it made no sense, but I still put down my breakfast and stepped on the scale. I was down a pound from Monday. Not exactly the loss I had hoped to see, which is why, boys and girls, YOU DON’T GET ON THE SCALE MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK OK??? I was happy to see a loss period though. Guess we’ll see what happens by Monday.

Trying to remember my current mantra: “It isn’t about the scale, it’s about getting healthier. The rest will follow!” repeat as needed.


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