I don’t normally write blog posts on two consecutive days,
but after yesterday’s positive and jubilant entry I crashed down to earth a
little bit within hours of posting . I had my weigh in yesterday evening. Over
the months I’ve come to actually look forward to weigh ins. In all the times I
have been to visit my consultant, there are only two occasions where I have
registered a gain, once after Christmas and then after my holiday in April.
Those were totally justified gains, I had veered off plan, intentionally, and
deserved the result that the scales showed me. All the other times have seen pretty significant losses. All is in balance in the
universe….Until yesterday.
Straight after work, and before dinner, I took myself off to
my consultant’s home for the Moment of Truth. I had made the usual contingency preparations.
No big meal, no overdosing on the water, ensuring that I had selected
lightweight clothes to wear, several trips to the toilet (including the one at
my consultant’s – any opportunity to eke out a few more ounces..) and I was
ready to see the results. For me it had been a good week. I had “stepped up” to
Step 4 upon reaching the 11.5 stone milestone (you have no idea how excited was
as being allocated those extra 200 calories a day!!) but, to offset this, I had
also upped my exercise activity, throwing in a couple of weekly running
sessions (several circuits of the pitch with some of the Rugby Mums during
training) in addition to my thrice-weekly Zumba sessions. The previous day I had
also clocked up some 18,000 steps on my FitBit during a mammoth shopping trip,
achieving a personal best on my
footsteps. I was excited but also little nervous. Excited, because at the previous
weigh in I had found myself at only 5lbs from a Twelve Stone loss, essentially “halving
myself” since last May. Nervous because I had been doing some naughty scale
hopping over the last few days trying to anticipate what the results might be. The
scales had fluctuated a lot, some days registering a loss, others a gain. But I
wasn’t too worried, last week my bathroom weigh-ins showed that I had stayed
the same, but by the time I reached my consultant I had dropped five pounds.
That pesky apparatus was clearly unreliable.
So , armed with this information and mis-information, I
tentatively stepped on the “official” scales and waited, with baited breath for
the Beep of Truth….
Behind me, where my consultant sat, I heard an uncustomary
sound…...the sucking of teeth. Having heard this noise many times emanating from
mechanics and plumbers with bad news to impart about the cost of repairs, I bristled.
This was unusual…
Then came the words..”You’re
not going to like this…. You’ve gained FOUR POUNDS…”
“What?????” My inner monologue, more used to bathing in
the glow of success, let rip a string of very demotivating expletives…”How the hell..???”.
I was confused, shocked, dazed…suddenly the world had tilted
on its axis and thrown me about. “How can
this be..? I’ve been so good…? What’s going on?”
I felt cheated. When I had gained before, I knew why and I had
no reason to quibble. I had enjoyed a
good time and was paying the price. But this time was different, I had
genuinely not misbehaved, in fact I had beasted myself on the exercise front.
It was so unfair. What was the universe doing to me?If I had gained , at least
deserved to have had a bloody good time earning it!!! This was wrong…
So, composing myself as best I could, I sat down graciously
in the chair, trying to display a beatific smile but there was no hiding my
dismay. My consultant did her best to console me, even to the extent of
weighing me again and taking my measurements. But the truth remained. I had
gained four pounds and not even lost any inches to compensate. Sensing my need to “talk this out” my consultant offered
what consolation she could. “it’s probably water weight from increasing your
exercise, you’re building muscle and losing fat”.
Now, when I first started talking
about taking up running, even before I actually commenced on the programme a
colleague of mine, a stalwart Marathoner had warned me that “you may actually gain a bit of weight when
you first start”. Of course, I had brushed this off, because, naturally,
this wouldn’t happen to ME, and they only said “may…”. I didn't want to hear those words so I dismissed them. But here were the facts,
staring me in the face, those naughty, muscles, tearing though a sudden burst
in activity were repairing themselves by holding on to the water in my body. And
as any women of childbearing age knows, water retention is the enemy. It was
the only answer. But I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all…
That night, I slumped back, a very grouchy Mummy, to my
husband and kids, who were eagerly awaiting the usual jubilant announcement of
how many pounds I had lost. They didn’t get the response they were expecting
and over dinner that night the usual animated conversation degenerated to the
occasional bark and mumble. I was not a happy bunny.
Once the kids had retreated to bed, and my husband had slunk
off reluctantly on his night shift, I grabbed my laptop and started Googling “Exercise
and weight gain” like a woman possessed. I wanted to be sure.. .. absolutely
sure that there was no other reason, no other more easily remedied reason to be
exact. But each tab I clicked on told me the same thing, it was very likely to
be water weight gain from the exercise. So why was I so obsessed? Why did I
need to KNOW so badly? Well Knowledge is Power. The only problem is that Knowledge
can’t whisk away those pesky four pounds and that’s what I really wanted more
than anything else….
Now that the dust has settled and my mood has been lifted a
little by the beautiful summer weather we are experiencing, I've had a chance
to contemplate and analyse my reactions to the gain.
It is perfectly
natural, I admit, to be disappointed
when our efforts aren’t rewarded in the way that we believe we deserve. I also
admit, however, that my reaction was a little bit extreme and inappropriate and
there’s obviously a lesson that needs to be learnt from this experience.
So what is life trying to teach me this time? Here are my
thoughts…
Being a person of my persuasion with a tendency towards
addiction and compulsion, and these go hand in hand with obsession. This can work
well as a driving force to getting things done, but it doesn’t prove so useful
when things don’t go as planned. I wrote a blog a couple of months ago about
how “when you make plans, God laughs” but, clearly this message needs hammering
home a little harder.
Coming up to the home straight on my weight loss journey,
I am finding myself desperate to get to the Finishing Line, which, last week,
was just a half stone or so away. But the problem is, I forget that I have been
running a Marathon, and not doing the 100 metre hurdles.
How many of those
completing the 26.2 mile slog are witnessed crossing the end line with a hop
and a skip, and a sudden burst of energy? Not many. In fact the majority of the
runners take the last few steps with palpable and visibly painful effort before
slumping unceremoniously to the ground in sheer exhaustion and relief. They are
not inclined to do the “lap of honour” like the sprinters….
And I must realise
that this is how it may be for me…
My journey, so far, has been a relatively
easy one, the weight has come off quickly and regularly and I have seen the
pounds and stones slip behind me. Now I have to work harder on the final stretch.
This does not rub well with my psyche and I’ve come to realise that I am still
very easily seduced by instant gratification. Only now I had replaced the buzz that
comes from consuming sugar and fat with that of seeing another great result on
the scale. Life is telling me to slow down…and to calm down…and this could be
my biggest challenge yet.
The little “devil on my shoulder” , who never misses a
trick, has already been whispering suggestively in my disappointed ear. Just
yesterday, as I stomped around my local supermarket, in a post weigh-in fugue,
he began with his little words of temptation…”Go
on..buy yourself a chocolate bar…you deserve something even if you’re not
rewarded with a weight loss… Feck it..what harm can it do?” Thankfully the angel (or Fairy Godmother)
on my other shoulder has upped her game in the recent months and was able to
carefully steer me away from the confectionery aisle.
I was also offered a form
of “temptation” by my consultant (although I believe that this was done with
the best of intentions) in the form of suggesting that, perhaps I would like to
reduce my calorie intake again, or decrease the amount of exercise I took.
I did
consider those options but in the end I decided against it. Fairy Godmother had
the upper hand… I suddenly understood that my focus had to be on the Big
Picture and not the relative minutiae of one “bad” weigh in.
Why had I embarked
upon this journey in the first place?
Was it so I could clock up a number of
rosettes on my fridge for every stone I had lost?
Was it so I could boast about
an unblemished record of losing weight each week?
Nope – I did it for my
health.
And what could be better for my health than a good exercise regime and
a long-term healthy attitude towards food? I needed to keep going forward not
turn backwards, just for the sake of the thrill of another big loss on the
scales.
I see, now that, that this is going to be a tough lesson to
learn, but it is an absolute essential one if I am to sustain the healthy life
I have craved for so many years. I need not to find another outlet for my
obsessions and addictions, but to release the need to indulge these at all. I
need to stop feeding the monster within, the one that craves thrills and
gratification, and instead to learn to nurture a stillness in my soul and a
quiet satisfaction that I am on the right path.
Ronan Keating got it wrong.
Life is, in fact NOT a Roller Coaster…well not all of it. Yes, there are times we
get to go on fairground rides in our lives, and these are equally exhilarating
and terrifying times. But these rides only last minutes. We spend a lot more of
our time just queuing up, waiting to get on the ride, and even more just doing
what needs to be done in life. But it doesn’t mean that our lives are any the
less enriched by the quieter times we experience.
It has been one heck of a
ride for me, so far, but now it is time for me to find a sweet spot by a tranquil
riverbank and just “be” , content that it is ok to sit still and exist.
This is going to be a tough one…wish me luck!!!
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