Seesaw

Wow--my weight is all over the place. Last week, I gained weight almost every day and ended up 3.3 pounds above my low weight the week before. I stayed within my calories every day, so I kept expecting it to come off the next day, but no, ever upward. Fortunately, the opposite seems to be true this week, and I've dropped 1.5 pounds in two days.

It's such a mental challenge to stay focussed when I'm gaining weight. My historic pattern has been to exercise and eat carefully till I hit my weight target, then slowly put the weight back on over a period of 3-5 years by the magic combination of eating more and exercising less, until I hit a weight that I can no longer take it, and the I start the whole cycle all over again.

My worst was a number of years ago when I weighed myself every week and watched my weight climb and climb, and felt powerless to do anything about it. My limit that time was 188.8. It seemed a perfect place to stop because that's the weight the electronic scale starts at when it resets itself. That was the first time I realized I had the capacity to be really obese. I'm glad I stopped. I've read that gaining and losing weight is really hard for your heart--I guess harder than staying stable. I really, really, really want to stop the cycle. I know that in order to do that, I have to pay attention to what I weigh, and when I put on a few pounds, take it seriously. I'm doing a great job now, but I've eaten healthily before and know how easy it is to slip into unhealthy patterns.