The first of each month brings a bit of angst as it is the day that I weigh myself. The morning of, I get up, drink nothing, use the restroom and then step on my digital scale. Its display celebrates waking up – pixels dancing and blinking as it reads my mass and body fat before it delivers the news. It then instructs me to “step off” as if it can’t bear the weight of the beast that prods it out of its slumber. Once relieved of its burden, the numbers flash and deliver what I hope to be a reward for all the hard work that I’ve put in at the gym. On March 1, the news was….wait, let me explain.
Before I share the results, and you have probably deduced that I am not blown away by them, let me share how much work I am putting in. I have a personal trainer twice a week, I hit the gym for cardio at least three more times a week and have largely cut all sugar and carbs out of my diet. I have practically become a teetotaler and only have a few glasses of wine once a week, at best. But those damn numbers barely freaking moved.
ONE. Uno. Eins. Ichi. I lost one additional pound and one percentage of body fat in the month of February. That’s it. As of March 1, 2017 I clocked in at 232 and 29%.
This is where everyone tells me that muscle weighs more than fat and I shouldn’t be focused on the numbers. As my British friends say, BOLLOCKS. I have 10 months to get rid of 32 more. Numbers don’t lie, but they don’t always tell the entire truth.
Despite the minimal weight loss, I CAN see changes in my body, my new jeans are already loose and people that haven’t seen me often have mentioned that I look thinner. I also FEEL better and I actually enjoy the gym.
But I really, really, really want my digital scorekeeper to deliver better news on April 1 so I have upped my cardio to an hour each time and this past week, I took part in an obsessive FitBit-driven “Workweek Challenge” with my colleagues. I didn’t win but I’ll be damned if it didn’t push me to move a LOT more.
Next week is vacation. The goal is to maintain the pace and keep moving towards being #Fitat50.
Good news you didn’t gain! Keep going, these plateaus happen. Your body is in adjusting mode.
Vodka has way less calories then wine.
I don’t know if it’s our age (I turn 50 in 6 weeks), but I am experiencing something very similar with my eating results. I, too, have cut out all sugars and most carbs (following a Keto style eating plan) and in the first 4 weeks I only lost 3.5 lbs! I hadn’t been doing much from a cardio or movement standpoint because I was trying g to get my head wrapped around the eating part. And to be honest, in the past, I never needed true exercise to make the weight fall off once I got my eating in line. Not so much this time. I’m hoping our Workweek Hustle pays off when I jump on the scale today!
I KNOW the Workweek Hustle kicked my ass. I just can’t get on the scale again until April 1. Let’s see if we can keep it up all month! And yes, age has a lot to do with it…but goddamn it we need to kick some ass and show these kids how it is done!
This is great news. You feel much better and you are moving in the right direction. But you’re a speed demon, and you want the numbers to melt away faster. Same! Keep up the good work. It’s working!