I read an article just now titled -
Reasons You Are Not Losing, and it really rings bells to me - a lot of the things they mention I fall into that category of and could easily lead to the reason I see such a back and forth on the scale. Now I've had variations between my scale and the scale I weight on at work so for this post, I'm going to sue the work scale. On 6/2 I weighed in at 235 pounds. On 6/6 I was 234.6, on 6/13 I was 230.2, and then yesterday 6/19 I was back up to 231.6. I've been working my butt off, watching what I eat and still gained and am thinking several of these reasons could be why:
- You Don't Drink Water - I'm EXTREMELY Guilty of this - I get sooo busy at work sometimes I don't think to drink. I put a post on facebook asking how people "remember" to drink and a lot of people mentioned about setting up an alarm or a reminder on their computer to have a message come up to remind you to drink. I think that I am going to do something like this. I currently only drink water (besides my morning protein shake) so it's not like I'm drinking crap but I do need to drastically increase my water intake!
- You Think Walking Your Dog Is Enough - I don't have a dog but maybe my walks at work just aren't enough but at least it forces me to get SOME exercise everyday - plus we keep pushing each other to get thru it faster! We cut 1 min 10 seconds off our walk earlier in the week - who knows what next week will accomplish.
- You Overeat Healthy Foods - I don't think I fall into this category but I will definitely keep it in mind. Basically it's staying that even though some foods may be healthy and good for you, it doesn't mean that they are void of calories! This is why I'm sure to keep track of ALL food even if it has no calories.
- You Only Do Cardio - I do not own a bunch of weights and the ones I do are only 1, 3, and 5 pounds - I'm hoping to increase my selection, and start doing more than just cardio and to do some target zone workouts.
- You Exercise With an Empty Stomach - I am guilty of this. I tend to have my snack AFTER working out and need to realize I need something to keep going and allow me to survive the workout.
- Your Partner Isn't on the Same Healthy Road - He says he is but he isn't 100% dedicated to it like I am.
- You Leave Out Entire Food Groups
- You Don't Sleep Enough - I have a 5 month old (who has issues sleeping on her back which she has recently began flipping to A LOT) so yeah sleep is not something I get a lot of.
- You Don't Get Enough Veggies - I def don't fall into this category - I eat A LOT of vegetables and love them!
- You Eat While Standing Up
- You Wear Clothes That Are Too Big - this has a lot to do with I'm just too cheap to go buy new clothes because I don't plan on being this size very long but I'm going out tomorrow and getting a few things in size 16 & 18 (when before pregnancy I was in 22's)
- You're on a Diet. Well, Sort Of . . . I def try to stick to my diet as well as I can and play out my meals. The last couple of days I've slacked a little but still am trying to do my best but comes July 1st I'm hitting it HARDCORE!
- You're Addicted to Condiments and Toppings - Salad dressing is my worst enemy here but I'm trying to stick to vinaigrette dressings.
- You Don't Eat Breakfast - I eat breakfast each morning when I get to work during the week - weekends are not necessarily the case. Gotta get better at that.
- You Don't Practice Portion Control - I used to be very guilty of this but now I'm starting to pay more attention to this but I know I could use more work on it.
- You Eat Without Thinking
- You Don't Cut Your Food - by cutting your food into smaller pieces it allows you to be more conscious about what you're eating and limits overeating
- You Still Drink Soda
- You Don't Eat Enough - I really think this is my #1 problem - when I first started this journey a couple weeks ago, there were several days I would struggle to get to 1000 calories and then was surprised when the weight didn't come off like I thought it should.
- You Don't Leave Time For Fun
- You Overindulge in Low-Fat Foods
- You Don't Keep a Food Journal
- You're Always Dining Out - We're cutting back on this but still eat out a lot more than we should.
- You Never Indulge - I do indulge though but am trying to limit at just how much I indulge.
- You Eat the Wrong Post-Workout Snacks - I try to have apples & peanut butter after my morning walks at work but other than that I rarely eat ANYTHING after working out but am going to try to change this!
So I really think that a lot of these are reasons that I could not be losing and when I start hitting this even harder in a couple days I'm going to make strategic decisions to pay attention to these things and see if the weight starts coming off!