The Scale Is Broken, Long Live the Scale!

I remained suspicious of the remarkable numbers showing on my scale. Wednesday, it had been down 5.5 pounds from Tuesday. Thursday, my scale read the same, but when I weighed myself at the gym, I got a higher reading. However, I hadn't used the gym scale before (an old-style doctor's office with sliding bars for the the weights) and the readings varied by clothes, shoes, and time taken. But Friday, my home scale was down another four pounds and that just wasn't credible. So Saturday, just before I left the house for the gym I weighed myself in clothes and shoes, and then immediately got on the scale in the gym ten minutes later. EIGHT POUNDS DIFFERENT!!!  Clearly the home scale is broken.  I don't get how a scale "breaks" but it is twelve years old, dirty, big, and I decided it was time to go shopping.

I have a lovely sleek new electronic glass and metal scale with a WW logo on it. (Bed, Bath and Beyond, $29).  Besides weight, it purports to tell me fat percent, water percent, BMI, and bone density.  Except when I read the pamphlet, it basically said all those other readings are very unreliable.  The main thing is, it works for my weight, I can read the number without wearing my glasses, I like how it looks, and it fits in my room.

Living for a couple of days thinking I might be near my ultimate weight loss goal stimulated some new thoughts, which I may write about at another time. Now, I simply want to note that the blitz actually did more or less what I hoped it would, really. Moved me through the plateau and onto a new downward trajectory. The trend is real but fragile. My most recent accurate readings are the lowest in six months.

This graph shows the plateau since February. The light line are my daily weights and the dark line shows the weekly average, taken on Saturdays. The total vertical range of this graph is ten pounds (I had to change the scale to get my latest weight on it!).  It's so clear how I've been bouncing around in this same space. This last week, I filled in my bogus data points with estimates from the gym, and yesterday and this morning are real on my new scale. I think I'm breaking through the barrier. This is what I need to keep myself motivated and moving forward.

The main change I've incorporated since my first four day all cabbage all the time phase is I'm trying to organize every meal around the vegetables. Start with that, rather than start with the meat.  I'm using meat more as a flavoring than a mainstay of the meal. My snacks are fruit, not nuts or cheese or something more starchy.  Thank goodness for peach season!  And apples are just starting to appear locally. I'm keeping with the WW on-line - I like the point totals, and that certainly keeps me vegetable and fruit focused.  Maybe because of the points, I've limited myself to a single dove dark square for a single point, every night.

And yet, it hasn't been all green.  I had dinner out with friends Friday night - the dinner was 31 weight watcher's points when my daily allowance is 29. (Shouldn't have had the piece of garlic bread - six points! And I didn't need to consume the whole piece of salmon - it was big enough to cut in half and set some aside to take home.)  Yesterday, I had an ice cream cone. Could have saved some points by having it in a cup, but the ice cream itself was worth it.

So I'm feeling quite optimistic and in control. This week, I'll be able to manage my eating mostly on my own with kids doing their own thing. Next week:  the family at the beach. Our tradition is not to eat out, so it'll just be controlling the beer and ice cream, and making sure we have fruit and easy vegetables in the house.