The "onlys"

Pin It I have talked about this before, but feel the need to address it again.  This is more for me than anyone else, but I am hoping someone else out there will take something away from it.

How many times have you weighed in at your weekly meeting and "only" lost a pound?  "Only" lost two pounds?  You can insert your own "disappointing" number in that place, but you get the idea.  All too often I say to myself "one pound just isn't good enough" - this week, quite frankly, I was disappointed with 1.3 pounds.  Deep down I KNOW that 1.3 pounds is awesome, but sometimes I need to take a step back to see it.  Sometimes it takes someone else's "only" to put things in perspective for me.  I had a friend who started WW recently and in their first week they "only" lost four pounds.  I'd give my left arm to lose four pounds in a week!  So I thought it was time to bring out some logic (for me and my friend).  First of all, a healthy rate of loss is 0.5-1.5 pounds per week (after your first few weeks on program).  So my 1.3 pound loss (20+ months into the program) puts me up there as a high achiever I guess!  I tried to explain to my friend that she should be so proud of her four pound loss - anything more than that is not healthy.  I told her to go to the grocery store and pick up a package of meat that weighs four pounds... now is it "only" four pounds?  I'd be looking at my butt to figure out which cheek that roast fell off of!!

Do you beat yourself up over "onlys"?  Do you expect big losses every week?  I have to remind myself sometimes that I did not put the weight on five pounds at a time, so I can't logically expect to take it off that quickly either.  This weight of mine took over 20 years to put on... I should be proud that I'm almost done taking it off in under 2 years.  The next time you think of your "onlys", take a trip to the grocery store - a friend of mine made me do this when I'd lost "only" 50 pounds - she sent me to pick up a 50 pound bag of potatoes...which I couldn't even LIFT!  This past week I was disappointed to have only lost 0.7 pounds and that I hadn't hit the 110 pound marker yet... then at a family event on Friday night someone mentioned my Great Uncle Joe (who has been notoriously skinny all of his life...a strong wind would blow him over)... someone mentioned they thought he had lost weight, but his son piped up and said "Nope, Dad still only weighs 108 pounds"...that's when I realized...I've lost UNCLE JOE!!  An entire MAN!  OR an overweight supermodel (this one's for you Fiona!)

Have a great week everyone and don't let the seemingly small losses get you down.  I try to remind myself that a loss is a loss...it's better than a gain!