Up & Down & Steady

Ahh.....the scale has been doing that so much this week....and if I were in any other place other than Maintenance, I'd be upset....but this is what Maintenance is.....you get a range of 5 pounds and that is your goal - to stay in that range.

I will not lie though....when I read 134.4 on the scale today, I was less than pleased, but then I contracted my abs and loved my sore upper body and I knew that this is part of the game. Working out, leads to some fluid retention when one's body is healing itself...and that next week, The Scale might/will say something different.

I also have to remember that I mowed the lawn in an hour yesterday - a lawn that in the past has taken me 90 minutes to cut!!! So BOOYAAH!! More healing going on....and I am getting a tush where the was none before....so there IS some muscle building going on as well....I think.

So anyway, I have this bridesmaid dress that I wore last year for my sister's wedding...and May 7th was their 1 year anniversary, so I tried it on - and it was more snug than I liked, and I was at 132 that day. For fun, I tried it on today and it zipped up even better than on the 7th.

Why am I telling you this, part of it is for me to now wig-out about being in my higher range (please, you think I am all calm?? LOL - NOT!) and part of it is to focus on our NON-scale victories.

That dress....is a non-scale victory guage of mine. Next year, I will still fit in it. Vowed that a year ago, and here I am...still fitting in it.

Little things like this are what matter....if you have been struggling, and not going anywhere on that scale, well, take a step back and look at what you ARE doing and what other progress you have made:
- maybe you couldn't walk for 20 minutes straight at a 2.5 mph - 3 weeks ago, and now you can!
- maybe you couldn't run for a minute straight - and now you are up to 3 minutes of running!
- maybe you were binge eating - and now you are making progress on cutting back!

Understand that this takes time...and patience really is a virtue when changing your lifestyle. Patience to be kind to yourself when you are in the middle of beating your self-esteem to a pulp. Patience to think and rethink choices over, over and over again....and knowing that one day, all of your patience will have not been for naught.