I am so doing the Happy Dance! This plateau was such an albatross around my neck. I am so proud of myself for sticking it out though, normally I would have given up. You guys here at Spark People gave me the encouragement and support to wait (weight ) it out.

I knew I was losing weight because for Pete's sake I was walking out of my clothes, literally, twice as I was walking in the gym. I get up so early to go to the gym most mornings that I dress myself half asleep. Don't realize till I get out of the car to walk into the gym that maybe I should have put on a smaller pair of pants over my swimsuit. Thank God I wear my swimsuit underneath my clothes or oh what a show that would have been!

This Plateau has taught me perseverance. I stuck with something and worked through it without giving up. I even had major back issues for most of the month but I kept up my exercise routine , modified of course. Coupled with a Plateau and an aching back, the old Yvonne would have said, frig this I am staying in bed, why torture myself? Nothing is happening anyways.

Well a lot was happening. My body was re-adjusting to my weight loss to losing 52 pounds since June 16th. (I started Spark at the end of May but screwed around till the 16th of June and even gained 3 more pounds in the process). Inches were being whittled away. I realized that my health was more important than giving up and self medicating myself with food. Had I given in and binged, yes I would have binged, cheating is too little of a word to describe what I would have done to my body. Sure I would have felt good for the short term ( like 5 mins) but then reality would have sunk in and I would be beating myself up for eating all of that crap, gained weight, and then be even further away from my goal.

A biggie for me is that during this Plateau I gave up my obsession with my scale. It used to be the 1st thing I would do is weigh myself and that would determine my mood for the day. Oh it took me a number of weeks into the Plateau to come to the conclusion that the scale is not King. I finally realized that this Queen had more control and power over what was happening in her life and not the scale. The scale used to validate my efforts and me in the past IN MY MIND. I am happy to say that is over. I am finally looking for other areas to show all of my hard work whether it is how my clothes are getting bigger, how I look in the mirror, my energy level, the fact that I am sleeping so much better, and last but not least how much better my sugar levels are with my Diabetes.

For my Team, no I am not 50 pounds down in our Challenge to lose 50 pounds by January 1st. I have lost 31 pounds since our Challenge so I still have 19 pounds to go to meet that goal. The fact that I still have 19 more pounds scares me because I have my cruise coming up and still have to get through the "Eating Season" as I call it. It is one thing to talk the talk and now I must walk the walk. We really are coming into the most difficult time of the year to be trying to lose weight. But we will do it and we do it together with all of the love and support of our fellow Sparkers.

I came across this great cartoon on a new Buddy's Spark Page. It is something that hit home and is something I have to remember when I am too tired to get out of bed, or have too much work to do, or it's too cold outside to get out of my warm and cozy bed:

"What fits your busy schedule better, exercise one hour a day or being dead 24 hours?" Randy Glasbergen Cartoons
It shows a Doctor asking an overweight patient this question during an exam.