The Weight Loss Roller Coaster

Anyone who has tried to lose a significant amount of weight has learned that losing weight is not a linear line downward, well sometimes in the very beginning it can be. Those are the days when we feel most hopeful and like we got this ALL figured out, but at some point... eventually, you plateau and get frustrated or life throws you a curveball and slowly you start moving upwards again. It can be only a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, sometimes many months or even years before you are ready to tackle the weight loss efforts again and often... sadly, we are at a higher poundage than when we first started our journey to lose weight.

This year I decided to try a 3 day diet put out by The Holy Mess website where you eat only zero point Weightwatchers food for 3 days. I tried this earlier this year and it was a great kickstart or reboot into eating healthy and tracking my WW points. I decided it would be good for me to do this 3 day challenge multiple times throughout the year, in fact I put it on my 2025 BINGO card. After I initially did the 3 day plan my husband challenged me to stay within my WW points for 6 weeks. I am happy to report that I did this, or at least I always stuck within my dailies AND weekly points, which I was happy with. I added an additional week to make it 7 weeks and stopped right before I left for a scrapbooking retreat.

I knew I was going to lose some control at the retreat, as they were feeding me 3 meals, and I would also be eating on the road once and at a pub once... could I have stayed within my points if I tried? Sure! Yes, with great effort and determination... BUT... I didn't want to. Part of the weekend was to learn how to grow my Creative Memories business and how to be a stronger demonstrator for my current customers, but part of it was meeting all the wonderfully creative women and simply enjoying being away for a weekend at a frozen lake. The following week I was scheduled to be in my first curling bonspiel, so once again I wasn't 100% sure how those meals would work between games and if there was a banquet, etc. and finally my kids were coming home for the weekend where I knew we would want to have some FUN. And of course for me, fun = food! I chose to continue tracking, it wasn't as accurate as it could be, but I did track to continue my streak and see just how far off I had fallen. I learned that 1/3 cup of peanut butter is 17 points! I know that seems like a ridiculous amount of peanut butter... but when you grow up with a "peanie" being your go to dessert, at some point you crave it again, and you slather that bread in a thick layer of PB & butter. It is so, so good, but wow, the points. Yikes! I also learned that a medium sundae at DQ with chocolate sauce is 22 points. AND a medium Tim Horton's Iced Capp is 19 points. For those of you not on WW, I get 27 points for an entire day, so you can see why I have to limit the treats. Oh, and Bailey's is 16 points per ounce, so sad :(

So my plan was to attend the retreat and not be crazy with the food, I wanted to have fun and feel good - mission accomplished. Curling bonspiel was not too bad: muffins for breakfast and homemade lunch one day, then out to an Italian restaurant the next day, lemonade is 7 points for 8 oz and ginger beer is 10 - those drinks add up. Even though I wasn't on plan for 10 days, I still learned a lot about food choices and how I feel after I eat them. For our family visit we ate healthy meals to ensure the kiddos got a good dose of vitamins while home: chef salads, salmon and stir fries on the menu along with protein pancakes, but still managed to fit in ice cream.

The real plan however, was that I could take the 10 days off from staying within my points, but that I still needed to track, this week I am -145 WW points (yep, that is a negative sign), and the scale agrees (I was up 2.5 lbs after the retreat and another 2 after the peanut butter incident, but am back down after the family visit to only a net gain of 2 lbs). My goal was to do the 3 day Holy Mess diet again starting April first and then follow with another 6 weeks of tracking and staying within my points every day/week. This takes me to Mother's Day. It also means I need to be on track during Easter and when my in-laws come to visit and when my son moves home from university. It means I will have some tough moments, where I have to be disciplined, but with a goal in mind, I can do it! By taking a break, I will lose about 3 weeks of traction before I get back to where I was when I started the break.

This week I have a craft group with snacks, a curling luncheon and a 12 hour scrapbooking crop that I will need to get through. The following week I have a teacher lunch at a Greek restaurant, an executive potluck and a trivia night out with the girls. The following week my kids are home again and the in-laws come to visit and it follows with Easter... you can see that there are so many occasions in the course of a week that can potentially derail someone who is trying to lose weight. It is too easy to break the plan just once when you are tired or want to have fun and all too often when you stop once, you don't get back on track right away. Imagine if I chose to wait another 3 weeks until Easter was over before I decided to get back on track? Then what would happen? Or maybe I wait until Mother's Day is over? It is too easy to allow all the holidays and special events to rule our plans. This is why having the goal of staying in my points for 6 weeks is really helping me, because I have an "excuse" I can tell people as to why I am uncharacteristically NOT eating the dark chocolate covered almonds or inviting them out for coffee. It also helps because as part of my deal with my husband he agreed to help me track my daily points, so every day I have to tell him everything I ate and I don't want to disappoint him or lose the challenge.

WW tracks your weight for you and makes these cool graphs. You can see my roller coaster looks quite different depending on the window of time you are looking at.

I hope this article gives you a little insight into the weight loss journey for many of us who are overweight. For those of you who are trying to lose weight like me, remember you are not alone. Keep trying, don't give up on yourself, you are worthy!