Reby's Weight Loss and Breast Cancer Journey: Disgusted and Frustrated

The title says it all. I have to report that for this week I have gained a half pound, up to 272.9.

There are weeks when I would be pleased with that because I knew I ate too much. Not this week.

I put my calories for the week in yesterday's blog. Yesterday was an exceptionally great day. I did not eat even one morsel at the Flower and Garden Festival. I had a perfect breakfast and dinner at home and my usual Subway lunch. My Lose It! app showed that I ate a total of 1463 calories with an allotment of 1550. The bigger news is that because we went to Downtown Disney and then Epcot, I walked over 14,600 steps, over six miles! I sweated buckets and drank gallons of water. I was actually excited to get up and check my weight this morning. Then I stepped on and felt that extreme sense of disappointment. At first I wanted to scream and then I wanted to cry.

Yesterday I tried to blame the gain on sodium because I did have higher than I would like Saturday night. Sunday's sodium was under the daily recommended amount. My average sodium for the week is also under that amount. So...I'm not blaming sodium for this gain. And, in fact, gaining a half pound for the week is almost like just staying the same. Well, the last two weeks should NOT have found me staying the same. I cannot find a reason why there would not be a great weight loss.

Mark thinks that tomorrow or the day after will finally bring a big drop. He might be right. Maybe next Monday I'll report three or four pounds down. Wouldn't that be nice! I'm not confident though. The last two weeks were pretty great. I had two bad days the week before last, but this past week was as close to perfect as possible. Unfortunately, this upcoming week has several very big challenges. Tonight we are going out to dinner at the Shalom Club for a hot dog dinner and a movie in the ballroom. I can probably keep the calories in check, but the sodium from the hot dogs will be high. Rudy arrives tomorrow and he always wants to eat out, breakfast at Denny's being a favorite. I can say no most days, but as the hostess, I feel guilty denying him this every day. Thursday night we are hosting a wine party for eight people. Not only will we be tasting four different wines, but also there will be cheese, hummus, crackers and chips, fruit, etc. to snack on. I am REALLY BAD at staying away from snacks that are sitting right there on the table all night. Also, it's in our house, so that means leftovers lingering around the house. That takes serious willpower that I have never developed. THEN, there's a two day holiday of Shavuot next weekend. There will be dairy foods like cheesecake and ice cream at both the synagogue and the home. Again, a situation where willpower is the answer and I suck at that.

The true frustration is that I have known this week was coming. I was hoping that this upcoming week would be a good week by staying the same. I had expected to be down another four or five pounds before this week got here. Sigh....

And the last thing to say on the subject is that my phone app is pushing my goal farther and farther away. The program lets you say what weight you are heading for and how fast (up to two pounds a week max) you want to get there. I said 240 is the goal, so that's what it's working on. It keeps getting further and further away. The last time I checked it was Sept. 5, after Hawaii. Now it's Sept. 11. Since I do NOT intend to diet in Hawaii because it's a special birthday celebration, that goal might as well be a year away.

So...I took a little break from writing this and looked up some of my old diet diaries. Yes, I have a drawer full of them going back years and years. My most successful year was 2009 when I dropped from 322 to 220 from mid-January to mid-September. I went on to go down to 205 by the exact one year mark. Why was that year successful? I tried to look at some of the things I wrote. I walked a lot, almost every day. I also went to the gym for weights and some swimming of laps about three days a week. Well, I am still doing that more or less. I swim less laps, but I do more water aerobics. I still do the same weight routines essentially and walk, but there is less walking right now for sure, not counting the six miles yesterday which is truly an anomaly. I was working then, so maybe just being at school and more active in the weekdays in addition to the exercise could have burned more calories. I was only 58 1/2 to 59 1/2. Now I'm 64 1/2. Maybe my metabolism has changed more than I know at this point. Also, and THIS is probably the most significant thing, I was keeping my calories in the 1100 to 1250 range on average instead of the 1550 Lose It! gives me. THAT is probably the single biggest thing that was different other than age.

Well...that may be the answer. I cannot lose on 1500 calories despite what the program says. Apparently, even with lots of exercise, 1500 is my maintenance number. Years ago, it used to be more like 1800, and that's even hard to stick to when you eat out a lot. I'm going to try really hard this week to go into the 1200 range instead of 1400-1500. Maybe that's the answer.

Meanwhile, I will be going to water aerobics this morning and weight lifting in the afternoon. Then I will eat kosher hot dogs at the Shalom Club meeting, and I will try my best to record it all as closely as possible. I have not given up yet, but I will admit that early this morning, standing on that scale, I was very close to saying "Screw this!" Hm....not a healthy decision, I know. I won't do it. I will suck it up and go on. Maybe next Monday's report will look better.

And now for some pictures from yesterday's time at the last day of this year's Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot.