Day 5: This is why you shouldn't weigh yourself daily

Experts tell us that we shouldn't weigh in more than once a week when we're trying to lose weight. Why? Because our weight can fluctuate daily, and for some women it can fluctuate by as much as 5 lbs from one day to the next because of hormonal water-weight gain.

I had "lost" almost 3 lbs the first day. Second day, about another .4 lbs (my high-end digital scale shows weight in .2 increments). Since then the number has crept back up, although not by a lot. Still, it's discouraging when you know you're doing everything right on a weight loss program, and you don't see those numbers going down, down, down. However, I would not be at all surprised if this is a water-weight gain situation, and I'm just going to stick to the program and trust that as my body makes adjustments to the new food routine, the weight will start coming off.

It's also possible I am a slow loser. This would not shock me AT ALL given my past dieting attempts. Although when I have had my thyroid tested (last time was during a physical within the past 2 years) it always comes well within the normal range -- meaning I can't blame an especially slow metabolism -- I just think I'm one of those people who gains weight easily and takes it off slowly. I have to work harder at it than some other people might.

Life isn't fair sometimes, but who said it would be?

This week and next I expect to be able to get in a couple of good house-cleaning workouts in; we have a seasonal rental apartment and I do the cleaning in between guests, and we've got a few different folks coming and going the next two weeks or so. It takes me between 90-120 minutes to clean the apartment and I really work up a good sweat doing it (and that doesn't count doing the laundry afterward - more sweating from lugging wet laundry to the laundromat to dry, folding giant sheets, etc.) So that ought to help the calorie burn as well.

In the meantime, I am doing visualizations every night, of standing on the scale and watching it go down, pound by pound. I try to feel the excitement and satisfaction of watching those numbers get lower, and watching my body get skinnier. My mission is to dig out that skinny girl inside me, I just know she's in there waiting for me to find her and pull her out into the light!

My stomach is reminding me it's lunch time and I need to go and eat. Then, a few hours of writing, an hour of cleaning up around our place, and it's off to pick my kid up at school. If it's not raining, maybe I'll even walk there (this would take me about 30 minutes).

How I did yesterday: Better than expected given how hungry I was all day long.
How I'm doing today (so far): Got in a major workout (heavy duty house cleaning + walking).