Pixie rants

That's right, Fat Daddy isn't the only one that can rant. Oh, he might do it better...but I'm up for the challenge.

You'll have to read about it on my other blog though as it has nothing to do with De-Puffing the Pixie!

Today is my weigh in. Two and a half more hours until I know if all my efforts this week will be rewarded.

The scale can be my friend, or it can be my mortal enemy. Oh, I tell myself that I won't give the scale the power to play with my emotions. I lie. It has a power beyond comprehension. Sometimes I toy with the thought of weighing only once a month. I don't think I could do that. I think I need the accountability of a weekly weigh.

Something happened a while back that I've been thinking about ever since. Some of you might remember I went on a girls get away with my very good friend Mary K. We went to Clearwater beach and stayed at the awesome Hilton for 2 days. Swimming pools, jacuzzi, ocean, cabana boys...oops how did that get in there? We had a fabulous time. I took healthy snacks and had a plan. Part of my plan was to attend my Weight Watcher meeting while I was there. We got up that first morning and had coffee and chatted. I love cookies with my coffee, always have. I enjoyed a fiber one bar instead. They are so good and chocolatey, a real treat. I had my WW yogurt and Special K high protein cereal. We got dressed and off we went to the meeting.

I had done awesome that week and was excited to step on the scale. The lady said 'you're up a little'. My heart crashed to my toes. How could that be? I was on program. I exercised. I was a good girl. I pretended it didn't bother me. It did. A lot. I slunk to my seat and peeked into my book and saw a 1.2 pound gain. I was gutted.

I'm sure you can all see where this is going and how the sad tale ended. I gave up. I was on holiday and I was going to enjoy. I ate crab. All you can eat crab. I can eat a lot. I ate a lot of other things too. We came home after 2 days, but the bad attitude came with me. I ate for the rest of the week. I said screw it, it's not worth the effort, and I ate the following week too. I went to my WW meeting 2 weeks later fatter and bloated. I gained 10.2 pounds that week.

Now, the crux of the situation. There's always a crux you know?

I didn't gain 1.2 pounds at all! Upon looking at my book at a later date, I noticed the error. I weighed 198.6 the week before our trip. When I weighed in at that meeting that fateful day, I weighed 197.4. Somehow, the computer wrote + 1.2 instead of -1.2. An error...a freaking error.

This has stayed with me all that time. What would have happened if the computer spit out the sticker that said I'd lost 1.2? Would I have continued on my healthy plan and prevented the eating frenzy? Probably.

Wow, that's a lot of power I'm giving to a scale.

I rarely weigh myself between my official WW weigh ins. I know how weight can fluctuate. It's not worth the mental angst for me to weigh daily. My main problem with this is my weight seems to dip mid week and then raise a bit before the week is out. So, if I weigh myself on Sunday and it shows I'm down a few pounds...I'll think 'ohhhhh by Tuesday I should be down some more'!!! It doesn't happen that way with me. Tuesday I'll hop on the scale expecting more than I saw on Sunday and it's always less so I'm disappointed. I might have lost, but it's less than what I thought, so it's not good. I learned from that, and like I said, I rarely weigh myself during the week because of that.

I was feeling quite thin the other day so I hopped on the scale. I was up 2 pounds. Gutted? Yep. I flew out of the bathroom and took out my frustration on Ian. I screeched even. 'I DON'T KNOW WHY I BOTHER TO BE GOOD IF I'M GOING TO GAIN WEIGHT ANYWAY!!! I MIGHT AS WELL EAT WHAT I WANT AND ENJOY THE GAIN!!' I then stormed out of the house leaving him to scratch his head and wonder what the hell that was all about.

I managed to bitch slap myself into submission and get hold of the situation. I told myself that I KNOW the scale goes up and down and chastised myself heartily for getting on the beast mid week. I reminded myself of the 1.2 pound gain/loss fiasco and told myself that the week wasn't over and the fat lady wasn't singing just yet. I stayed on program. It was hard and it all could have been avoided by not getting on the stupid scale in the first place!

It's not practical for me to say I'm not going to get on the scale ever again. It is unfortunately how I choose to measure my success. Not the only way of course, but the tangible way. The way that will allow me to reach my WW goal and be able to attend meetings free for the rest of my life. I need those meetings, so the scale and I must learn to play nicey nicey.

Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I love it. We're in a rocky relationship for sure, but we're in it for the long haul. I am learning to not give it the power. I won this week. Doing things once makes it easier to repeat. I pray that it will be good to me today in a few hours. If not, I'll kick it up a notch and hope for a better outcome next week. I'm nothing if not stubborn!

:-)