Perceived Failure Vs. Real Failure

First of all, I've said it before, but I should say again: NONE of our views or opinions are those of WW.  Well, they might agree with me on stuff, but I am not speaking on behalf of WW ever.  So just know that.  Anyway, with that being said... I started working for the big W last week.  I've had a particularly stressful few weeks recently both with work and life in general, and I'll admit, I've been sort of stress eating.  I'm still tracking my food and activity, BH is still tracking, but we are pretty sucktastic when it comes to being 'Viva'.  And we know we aren't alone in our perceived failures.

Today, As I was checking in members for our meeting, almost every single person that stepped on the scale said something along the lines of "I've had a horrible week," or "I know I'm up this week."  And you know what? ALL of them, except ONE person were down.  Some of them were down 2-3 pounds when they thought they had been terrible.  What impressed me more than their successes was that despite their perceived failures, they came in and faced the scale.  This is what I've found to be the key to my hitting goal this time compared to all of my failed attempts at WW in the past - just keep going.  No matter how I think I did in a week, I did not miss a weigh in.  I didn't skip a week because I didn't want to see a gain - that's a slippery slope and usually the beginning of the end.  I needed to know what I was facing in the next week and I either wanted to celebrate my success of a loss, or get smacked in the face with a gain if I had been slipping so I could pick myself up and do better the next week. 

One of today's meeting members, despite being down .6 pounds this week was disappointed with her results.  She was saying how hard she'd been trying but that she wasn't seeing results that she wanted.  My mentor (trainer) and I both knew that she had just come in from a doctor's appointment, so we asked her how her testing had gone - cholesterol, blood sugar, etc.  She said, "well, it's all looking really good and I'm a lot healthier."  We had to remind her how fantastic that is - that the scale isn't reflecting all of her success.  We gave her some tips on how she can have a better week next week (she's not drinking enough water, just coffee!), and told her that if she is really as diligent as she'd been leading up to today and added in more water, she'd have the success on the scale that she'd been looking for.

The only way to truly fail at your weight watching endeavors is to give up.  If you are actively trying - even if you're only tracking WHAT you're eating, not the amount or PP value, that's still something.  If you just show up to weigh in, not even staying at a meeting, that's still something.  BH and I have to remind ourselves that we are still exercising, we are still tracking, we are still trying.  Sure, we might be disappointed with our lack of will power because we are eating our kids' goldfish crackers or too much pizza or drinking too much wine or whatever.. but we are still trying.  We have to remind ourselves that we can't be having real failures if we are still trying.  We have to be kinder to ourselves than we have been.  Would I tell a member that their efforts aren't good enough?  NO.  So why are BH & I being so mean to ourselves?  We are all our own worst critics.  It's time to start treating ourselves, yourselves, as you would your best friend.  Encourage yourselves like you would your best friend.  Start making a healthy lifestyle a priority, treat yourself right.  I guarantee you'll start to see results if you do.