Turning Negative into Positive: Reframing Weight Gains

I am trying to live a more positive life and shed the negativity that I feel has held me back in my past.  My weight loss journey is full of ups and downs and used to be full of negative emotions usually stemming around setbacks on the scale.  The reality of my weight loss journey (and I suspect I’m not alone) is that gains happen.  It took me a long time to come to terms with that simple fact.  It took me even longer to figure out a process that allows me to work with the weight gains and turn it into something I can learn from.

Once I accepted the fact that gains happen I was able to let the frustration of the gain go, especially as I began to see patterns in the gains that I could predict.  This has proved to actually be very liberating for me.  It has allowed me to look at it more objectively.  It gave me the room I needed to step back from the emotions and really look at what is going on.  I think the process needed for this will be highly individual but I thought I would share mine.

The first step I always take when trying to figure out what is happening is to look at my trackers – my food tracker and my Fitbit.  These two things have been incredible tools in helping me evaluate the things I have done.  They keep me honest.  I mean it’s hard to argue a weight gain when you look back and your food tracker shows you had desserts every night and ate more points than you are allowed. 

When it comes to my food tracker the most common sign I know that I’m going to be up is that I either didn’t fill it out at all or I only half-filled it out.  These are two signs that I have usually decided that I don’t care what I’m about to do – it is my rebellious side sneaking out (and yes she exists even if she doesn’t show herself very often). 

My Fitbit is still a tracker I’m learning about.  I haven’t had it long enough to develop the patterns that I know will either equal a weight gain or loss.  If I have a gain though and my steps are down I figure it is probably a safe bet that I should have tried to find more time to move during the week.  There may be outside reasons/excuses for my steps being down(-30 degree temps for example) but sadly my body doesn’t care about the excuses – it won’t do what I want it to if I don’t do the things I know I need to.

Often looking at the trackers is enough to satisfy my need to know why I had a gain.  When I first started this process once I had an answer I would stop looking.  I discovered the problem with this is that I would repeat the mistakes over and over again.  I knew I needed to change this so I added the second part to my process.  After looking at the trackers now I sit down and take time to reflect.  Not only do I look at the mental side of my week (stresses, mood, ect) but I also try to figure out what triggered whatever my trackers are showing me.  This step is where I have really begun to learn about my body, my habits and my triggers.

The art of reflection is a powerful skill but sadly not one that comes easily at least to me.  I have found though that if I put in the effort to reflect on anything that it has always paid off for me.  My tool for reflection is a pen and a paper.  My journal is a spot where I write everything out in my brain  and then I can actually look at it with a little distance.  It is a scary twisted book but the ramblings on the page allow the novelist in me to look at myself as a character I need to fix.  This way of doing it won’t work for everyone but I would be lost without it.  I’m a firm believer change can’t happen without some sort of reflection.

This week is the perfect example for how I use my process.  I knew even before going to weigh in yesterday that the scale was going to be up.  I can generally know what the scale is going to tell me and it is usually because my gains are now predictable.  First I looked to my trackers and not only was I down on step totals each day but my food tracker is blank except for Monday’s breakfast.  Mentally my mood was down this week and I didn’t have any motivation. 

The reflection part of the process was a bit more challenging because I ask every kid’s favourite question, “Why?”  When I first start to write the easy answers spilled onto the page – I was scrapbooking, it was too old outside – and although these are logical reasons to me I can’t accept them and call them excuses.  (My definition of an excuse is a reason that I have no control over.)  The reality of my life is there will be more scrapbooking retreats and winter lasts forever so unless I’m willing to accept more gains I need reasons that I can actually fix.

Digging a little deeper I was able to find a clearer, more fixable issue.  In stepping back and looking at all aspects of the past week I realized that going into my scrapbooking weekend I gave myself permission not to care.  I didn’t want to have to worry about tracking my food (or even paying attention to the food choices) or trying to get my 10000 steps.  This would have been fine if I could have limited this attitude to the weekend.

The problem is I have a hard time starting up again if I shut off.  I came to realize after last weekend that I actually subconsciously write off the whole week because I have thrown away the weekend.  Looking back on past experiences I’m not sure why I didn’t see this sooner but it makes perfect sense and is something I have done quite often.  This is a problem that I can find a solution for and prepare for though.  Luckily it is also a problem that I have time to work on before I’m presented with a similar situation again. 

The quick solution though to get me back on track is to pull out some of the tools I regularly use.  So even before weighing in on Saturday I pulled out my meal plan template and recipe books to plan food for the upcoming week.  I did a proper shopping trip on Friday night to stock my fridge with yummy, healthy fresh food.  I also promised myself to do better this week so that no matter what the scale says next week I know that I did the right things.

Before I end this little blog entry I should put a caveat on this process though.  My process doesn’t always work.  There are times in my journey where I have done everything right and still had the number on the scale be up.  These are still frustrating to me but because I can look back and see when they happened over time (because of my obsessive tracking skills) I was able to find a solution to at least some of them (damn hormones!).  The times when the process doesn’t work for me at least though I can step away from it knowing that I have done what I can to ensure that I have the success I want.  Not finding answers doesn’t mean the process failed it just means that maybe the answer is still waiting to be found later.

Working through the problem (ie weight gain) has become something I have gotten pretty good at.  It has taken time, practice and lots of patience to figure it all out.  I use the tools I have at hand and make them work for me.  They will show me the truth of what is going on versus whatever story I may tell myself.  The one thing that I stand by though is that turning negatives into positives is powerful, liberating and motivating all at the same time.  It has always proved to be worth the effort in my opinion.  We might not be able to avoid the negative side of life all the time but at least we can find a way to make it work for us.