Why Dieting is So Hard

I had my first really good, solid week last week.

• I stayed within my daily points for the most part, only going over a total of 3 points all week.
• I earned 38 activity points.
• I completed 5 days of Power 90.
• I hit the elliptical 3 days.
• I ate whole foods all week until the weekend, and then limited carbs and processed foods as much as was in my power.

And guess how the scale rewarded me this morning? 

Zero.  Nadda.  Zilch.

I’m exactly the same weight as I was last Monday.

Theoretically, I should have seen a huge loss this week, something like 5-6 pounds.  It’s my first solid week back to tracking and I deliberately ate really good foods all week.  I also worked my butt off.  (Well, I tried.  Literally.)  How can I lose NOTHING?

It happens and it happens a lot.  I really think that’s one of the main reasons I’ve failed to diet in the past.  Disappointing results at the scale that were nowhere close to meeting my expectations.

But I’ve been down this road before.  I remember the last time I did Power 90 really hard that I lost hardly anything from the beginning.  Until I started eating more.

So I’ve had my week of detox.  I’ve gotten back into the habit of tracking food.  Now I need to go one step further and trust myself to eat more than my daily points and still stay in control.

Sadly, that’s easier said than done.  I’ve only just begun getting back into the swing of things.  Now I have to deliberately eat more, and not get off track again?  But I know that if I don’t fuel up a little, I’m not going to lose.  Not with the kind of exercise I’m doing.  I need plenty of protein to recover from the workouts and build lean muscle tissue.  Power 90 isn’t exactly a “weight loss” exercise.  It’s a toning, firming, reshape your body exercise.  Yes, I know I can and will lose weight on it, but it’s more than the number on the scale.

It’s how strong I feel.  How tight my body gets.  I can literally feel my body getting thinner and tighter and harder, no matter what the scale says.  I’ll fit into smaller sizes no matter what the scale says.

But I really think 90% of the battle is mental.  Instead of just throwing a few points in willy nilly, I changed my thinking a little.  I’m doing WW online, so I changed my settings to pull overages from my weekly points instead of exercise points.  (In the past, I felt better going over if I’d “earned” them.)  Everyone gets 49 extra weekly points to use, and honestly, I rarely used them in the past.  That may be part of my struggle for keeping on track though.  We need those extra points, especially once we get down to 26 daily.

This time, I’m going to deliberately and with great forethought dip into those points.  I’ve written up a schedule where I eat an additional 28 points per week, tightening up as much as possible on the weekend (since my WI is Monday morning).  That leaves me some extras if I have a special event, and of course I could always dip into the activity points if I need to.  I’m also varying the number I eat each day, with one larger spike of 10 points on Friday to keep things interesting.  Hopefully.   

Otherwise, my plan is more of the same this week.  Power 90 (shooting for 6 days this week), plus a few extra elliptical trips, as often as I can drag the monsters to the gym.  Food wise I intend to continue concentrating on whole foods and limiting carbs, especially at dinner.  If I do eat carbs, they’ll be whole grain as much as possible.

I’ll report back in next week with the results!