Remember my post about Putting My Money Where the Scale Is? I’d call that a mixed bag of a challenge for me. My thoughts…
- It was motivating to spend $35 and want to win my money back and then some. Apparently 1/3 of people “win” challenges on average. I really wanted to be one of those people.
- I don’t need one more social media platform to feel like I needed to participate in (so I really didn’t, which probably hurt me in retrospect).
My weigh-in weight 4 weeks ago was 160.4#. The particular challenge I participated in was to lose 4% of your body weight in 4 weeks – which for me was roughly 6#.
The good news? I lost weight.
The bad news? I only lost 3#.
Whomp whomp.
This morning I weighed in at 157.4# – which is basically back to where I was 2 weeks ago before going to Ann’s wedding. In all honesty – I’m glad I splurged at the wedding and on that entire vacation weekend. No regrets there. But then when I got home I got sick for 2 days (like couldn’t get out of bed sick one of those days), so 5 days being out of the rhythm of doing dedicated exercises and tracking cals just threw me totally off track.
However, I have 4 days left in my 6 Week MILF Challenge to myself, and overall I’m feeling pretty good about my progress over the past 6 weeks. I’ll write more about that next week, but considering I started both of my pregnancies at 161# and I’m consistently staying in the 150s now, that makes me very happy and proud of the hard work I’ve put in to be a healthier version of me. My “line in the sand” number used to be 172#, but I’m realizing that I feel so much better about myself when I stay below the 160# mark, so that is my new line in the sand number. Basically, if I hit 160#, I need to take a step back, focus on some “me time,” and start leading a healthier lifestyle STAT. It makes sense that I feel best in the 140-150 range, because 164# is the highest I should weigh for my height without being the in “overweight” BMI category.
So there ya go…I didn’t win the challenge, but I’m definitely happy to be below my starting pregnancy weight as a breastfeeding Mom who is not quite 9m postpartum with #2. Progress, not perfection, right? 🙂
I love your weight posts. It makes me feel normal!! I’m only 5’5″ and right now I’m 16 weeks with number 3 and weigh 152. I lost about 20lbs right before I was surprised with this baby! In fact the last 8lbs was caused by being sick and not eating! Didn’t realize I was pregnant.. Oops! Anyways I love reading these posts!
Thanks! Sometimes I feel hesitant to write another maintaining post, but that’s half the challenge in reality, so I hope it helps others to realize this is a lifelong lifestyle challenge really!
Keep posting them!
I like your “line in the sand” idea. I need to set one at the end of this current 10 week stint. I don’t want to be too aggressive (my line in the sand many years ago was 145 and that was too hard to stay behind), but I also don’t want to be too lenient. It will depend where I end up, I guess. I am thinking 150?
You’ve had some roadblocks. It’s amazing how they can screw us up. Staying motivated, or getting motivated again, is HARD.
Exactly. I’d love to have my line in the sand be 150, but I also like to enjoy my life (which for me includes drinks with friends and splurges on good food), and for now at least, 160 seems to be a more realistic limit. Maybe someday I’ll reduce that to 150, but over the years I’ve found it way more helpful to set realistic goals than to constantly feel like I’m failing, you know?
Yes! It’s no fun when you feel like a slave to the scale. Right now, while dropping weight, I LOVE weighing myself. But when I’m in maintenance mode, holding myself to a difficult number causes me much stress.
You should be very proud… you lost weight in that time frame and that is awesome… AND you are below your line in the sand! I think that is a really good idea. Once I am a little further out of post baby stage, I think I will draw myself a line… not sure what it will be yet. I agree though, it is stressful if you make the line too hard to stay below and are always having to push so hard to be there. Life still needs to be lived and drinks still need to be drank 😉
Definitely let yourself get farther postpartum before you draw a line! Gotta enjoy those baby snuggles while you can.
And yes, life needs to be lived and drinks need to be drank. 🙂