This morning I'm going back into "weight loss mode" for, I think, the first time since I got back down to my postpartum goal weight. I've been within bounds for close to three months — not a bad run, considering I'm dealing with the ups and downs of breastfeeding.
(A note on that — When I was heavy, I didn't even notice that breastfeeding made me need more food. I figure I was already eating so much and throwing off the excess in heat, that my body just threw off less heat and fed the baby from that. Now it's very, very obvious that feeding the baby means I have to eat more, though the exact quantity is difficult to hit.)
I weigh daily. One way I make this work for me — one rule — is that I return to stricter habits when I have seven readings in a row that are above my target weight of 112. It goes very nicely with daily weighings (seven days = one week) and it's not hard to remember. Seven is enough data points that a trend can be visible among the random ups-and-downs.
I still have a hard time understanding why people say "Oh, I can't weigh daily." Data from the National Weight Control Registry has me convinced that daily weighing is not harmful (even though you will frequently see that advice on dieting sites and in books as if there was evidence that daily weighing stalls weight loss all by itself).
I guess I can understand it depending on the personality. I have to hold myself back from restricting my habits too soon — like, oh no, I had a bad food day and the next day the scale reads 2 lbs higher, I better act NOW. Well, I hadn't thought of this possibility, but it can act the other way too — a friend of mine told me she doesn't weigh daily because, when she happens to have a lower reading, it's easy to convince herself she "has room" to go off habits that day.
(Which is a normal part of maintenance — but is an act of pure self-sabotage in attempts to reduce weight. "The data shows that what I've been doing is working! I should do the opposite today!")
Anyway. Seven "high" days in a row, and it's time to check my habits. I consider myself back in maintenance after I bring my five-day running average under the target. That can take a few weeks.
Habit number one: tomato juice and boiled egg for breakfast…
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In other news, my new driver's license arrived today. It strikes me as a really stupid idea to scan pictures of my ID and put them on my blog, so I won't, but let me tell you — the difference between the old one and the new one is really cool. I keep putting them side by side and looking at them.
A couple of times over the last couple of years, I pulled my driver's license out to prove to someone that I used to be heavy. (The weight listed on my old DL is 160 lbs; my new one, 112.) I think I'll go on carrying the old one in a spare slot in my wallet.
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