Healthy You Challenge check-in: I gave up drinking for *this*?

Warning: this post contains some bad language and several instances of petulance.


Today did not begin well.


Today began, as usual, with the scales. The scales didn’t tell me anything I wanted to hear. The scales told me that I’ve gained 400g (that’s a pound, for the metrically-challenged amongst you) not just since last week, but since yesterday, bringing my weight back up to 68.2kg.


I should take that shiny “10kg lost” badge down, really.


This has been a shitty week stuck on another plateau, despite my sticking to my programme. Here are the calorie counts (and exercise) for the week:


Tuesday: 1,985 and an hour’s skiing
Wednesday: 598, half an hour on the Treadclimber, 45 minutes of weights/strength
Thursday: 1,786 and a Body Pump class
Friday: 502
Saturday: 1,646
Sunday: 1,018, 40 minutes of weights/strength and 12km on the treadmill for a total of about 900 calories (Yes, 1,000 is not 500, but this is not a one-pound-gain-level fuck-up)
Monday: 1,786

I’m really at a serious loss to figure out how that translates into this:


Tuesday: 67.8
Wednesday: 68.2

Thursday: 68.0
Friday: 68.2
Saturday: 67.9
Sunday: 67.9
Monday: 67.8
Today: 68.2


I do not believe this to be the result of my body going into starvation mode. Anything I’ve ever read about this phenomenon suggests that it won’t kick in till you get below 1,000 kcal a day, and last week I averaged about 1,330. Given that my RMR is only in the region of 1,600 that’s not that low. And the whole point of the alternate-day thing is that your body isn’t supposed to notice that you’re not eating much.


Well, mine certainly hasn’t noticed.


It’s not muscle. The scales measure body composition and that has not changed. I suppose it’s probably water, but really, I am so over this shit. I am so over the stupid crap my body likes to pull where I have to struggle and struggle and suffer to lose one ^&*$”@# pound that I can then put on again by looking at food. I appreciate that I should be focusing on the health benefits of being more active, but to be honest right now they’re not massively in evidence: I don’t really feel any fitter; I still sleep appallingly; my skin’s still crap; I’m still permanently stressed and exhausted (thanks work!) - the weight loss was really the only result I was seeing. So I’m into the weight loss; so I like to see the scale going down: does that make me a bad, an immature, a less complete person? Does it bollocks.


I’m going on holiday in two and a half weeks. I wanted to get to 65kg by then. On the 2nd of January that looked like a sensible goal. Even last week it seemed perfectly achievable. But thanks to this random, apparently groundless regain it’s not going to happen. And that makes me want to kick things, scream and punch the wall. Perhaps that makes me a bad, immature person.

I know I’m supposed to love my body. I know I’m supposed to respect it for what it can do and not beat it up for what it can’t, but there isn’t much it can do. It’s clumsy and malcoordinated. It can’t even run 5K. All it appears to be good at is taking non-existent calories and converting them into all-too-existent fat. Compare that to my mind, and it’s not hard to see why I think of my body as the weak link in this particular chain. I try to treat it well: I give it the right quantity of food and make sure it gets plenty of exercise and enough sleep... and this is how it repays me? I gave up drinking for this?

I don’t really know where to go from here. Giving up obviously isn’t an option. I could try changing to another programme, but nothing else I’ve tried has worked even this well. The idea of going to a WeightWatchers meeting sets my teeth on edge, and I don’t think that doing the programme alone would work any better than plain calorie restriction. The GI diet and similar programmes which rely on your being able to judge satiety also won’t work – I’m perfectly capable of getting fat on low-GI foods because I’m still learning about portion control. I suppose I’ll continue with ADF, because the only alternative I can see is going back to where I was, and that appeals even less. But it does feel as if I’m having to fight very hard just to stay still.


So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.