The Sunday Milestones

On Sundays, I step on the scale.

I don't actually have a scale at home because I am obsessive compulsive and I would be on it every morning, every night and soon you would see another spreadsheet that caculates my weight fluctuations over the course of the day.

Not healthy.

So I've limited myself to Sunday after my aerobics class.

Today was both elating and disappointing. Technically the math works out that if you burn/don't eat 1000 calories a day from your daily requirement (which you can figure out with a scientific calculator and a formula), you'll lose 2 pounds a week. I'll walk you through that formula when I have the patience and I forget how much I hate math.

Regardless, after three weeks with minimal slippage on the "life style" (diet = bad word) and decent gym appearances, I've lost 5 pounds.

This is awesome, because for some reason, weight loss revolves around numbers in 5's--5, 10, 15 pounds. Those are milestones. So even though my goal was 6, 5 still feels pretty good. But I'm kind of wondering about that one last pound. Why couldn't it take a hike like the rest of it's unwanting cousins?

The bottom line is this. We're a culture of fast, now, get it done yesterday. xenapal, quartrix, superweightlosspillsupreme...whatever they are. They promise "I lost 48 pounds--FAST!"

Sure, maybe they did, but let's get real. There's that little star at the bottom of the commercial that explains "*results not typical!" They were probably also dieting and exercising and getting paid to lose an inhuman amount of weight.

Safe weightloss is, I am not lying to you, 2 pounds a week. So no, you cannot lose 10 pounds before you go on spring break next week. Or if you can, you either had a plastic surgeon or you did something that did more damage to your body than good.

It will take you about a month to lose those 10 pounds. But think about it--a month really isn't THAT long.

Commit yourself to 1 month of watching what you eat (honestly, not forgetting about that cookie you had) and working out (running because you're late to a meeting does not count). I don't promise 10 pounds, but I do promise that you will lose something. At the very least, you will feel better about yourself.

In other news, next time I teach cycle, i'm using flo rida's "sugar"

Edit: I just realized that I needed to clarify those 10 pounds in a month. I'm talking about sustainable weight loss. Not water weight. Some people see huge numbers when their body starts to lose weight, but only about a third of this weight is actually fat. The rest of it is water. Remember, our bodies are primarily water weight...and being hydrated actually helps you burn fat. So dont' skimp on the water/fruits/vegetables, they'll help you out in the long run, even if you don't see massive water shed the first month.