Feelings are hard, numbers are easy

To weigh, or not to weigh? This is my dilemma, friends. Okay, maybe dilemma is too strong. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, though. My dear friend L, who has lost something like 75lbs over five or six years with Weight Watchers, recommended to me that I think about moving to weekly weigh-ins. But, but, but, I thought, I love weighing every day! I know every diet/fitness blogger on earth has gone through this decision, but for the record, here are my personal pros and cons:

Pros:

• Daily reaffirmation of accountability
• Physics Diet turns the fluctuation noise into trends I can follow
• My awesome Tanita scale!
• Numbers are easy, feelings are hard

Cons:

• Relying on the scale for affirmation
• Substituting numbers for feelings

Is the scale a safety blanket for me? Am I afraid to rely on my own intuition because I’m scared I’ll repeat the past, where somehow I “couldn’t tell” that I was gaining weight until my clothes mysteriously stopped fitting? (Um, was that even a successful lie in my own mind?)

Intuition can be great — I feel like I’m relying on it now, since I’m not tracking my food and only exercising 3 times per week at most, and yet I’ve been dropping about 1-2lbs per week for the last month! But intuition is fickle, it can steer me toward the cheesecake and fresh donut stall at the farmer’s market when I was fully intending to buy tomatoes and lettuce.

Meanwhile, whither exercise?

Okay, notice that I tried to sneak by with that reference to my three days of exercise per week. Accountability time! To be honest, although I’m definitely getting my weekly Yoga and Hula dance classes in, exercise during the rest of the week is totally haphazard. I’ll go for a walk if it’s shoved in my face, but the rest of the time it’s like I’m ignoring a good friend! I’ve got missed calls from my beautiful red bike and my walking shoes, and I’m afraid to call them back. This is not good.

Here’s the thing: I seem to be dropping what I think of as “fake” weight right now. It’s real weight loss, and I’ve eaten a million salads to prove it, but these are pounds that were only sustained by a year (okay, years) of eating very poorly. Too much ice cream, too many pasta dinners to please my husband, too many decadent brunches even when I wasn’t hungry for them, too many hamburgers at restaurants and grilled cheese sandwiches at home. Too much of everything! My body has been full like a bathtub with the overfill drain stopped up, and now I’m dropping to a more reasonable level.

So while I’m perfectly happy to be losing weight (10 lbs since June 15), am I really in the right place to be relying on diet and not cultivating life-affirming, happy-making exercise habits? I’m still listed as obese in my medical chart (though Physics Diet dropped my risk from Very High to High today). I’m not sure what is holding me back on the exercise front. Hotter weather and the threat of a sunburn? Should I just stick with what’s working until it stops?

I have a sneaky feeling that I should be paying attention to my emotions here. Hmmm. Do I really feel satisfied solely by a slowly decreasing number on the scale? Maybe for now, but I need to evaluate whether I’m feeling emotionally balanced with my exercise. How am I respecting myself? I have to love my ability to slather on sunscreen (yes, even at 6pm) and find my iPod for a walk after work. If I just love my ability to do Yoga and Hula, what happens when those classes end? I need to have other habits that can fill in, otherwise this lovely stroll downhill to weight loss will get much more difficult.

Here is my commitment: one day this week, I will go for an evening walk. I’ll remind myself why I like walking so much. I’ll think about how I can fit more walking into my week, even when it is sunny and there is a lazy garden chair and a laptop waiting for me, and a million entertaining shows on the DVR. Each of these things can wait, because this week I’m just going to go for a walk. All I have to do is let my intention help steer my thoughts and make it actually happen.