I've been pretty nonplussed about my WW program these past two weeks because I haven't been seeing progress on the scale. As you know, I was even up this week (queue my day-long pity party on Monday).
However, even though I haven't seen the changes I want on the scale, there have been changes. Thursdays are my (Iyengar - by far my preferred style) yoga nights, and I stopped after class last night to talk to the teacher about what class I should take in the new year. I'm new-ish to this, but I want to do well and constantly improve my poses. Even though yoga is often available to all shapes and sizes, the fact is that if you've got some extra business goin' on in the front, you will likely need to modify or compensate because you can't touch your nose to your knees (for example). I don't know if I'm becoming more limber just from doing yoga regularly, but I'm finding that I have more 'mobility' and can fold myself up into increasingly complicated and sometimes bizarre (rock a baby, anyone?) configurations. Her advice was to move up because my poses are apparently already good. I was happier about that than you may imagine.
So my point is this: we all, WW included, tend to obsess about the scale too much. In fact, I've always had a bit of a beef about this with WW, which does not really take measurements into account (some leaders encourage it, but the actual program does not). When I did Body for Life, I lost a relatively small amount of weight but dropped 4 sizes (I tend to build muscle pretty easily, which is heavy). I even stopped weighing altogether and had never been happier with my progress or more fit. Everyone loses weight differently, and I know from my previous attempts that a 2 pound loss per week is on the high end for me. I'm not abandoning the scale, as there's no denying that someone my size really does need (much) better numbers. However, I will also celebrate my yoga victory and decreased 'front matter' in spite of 1.2 pound gain this week. <grin>
Good post Mae and very true. Me and my peeps have always been heavy so we know what this is all about. I was actually thinking of exactly this yesterday when I was channel hopping and stopped on a weight loss success story of a girl who weighed 7 pounds less than me but was 2 sizes larger.
ReplyDeleteIt is not at all about what you weigh but how you feel!
Yoga rocks - that is as long as you aren't in a class beside hippies who don't believe in deodorant! :) And getting compliments from the instructor is certainly a victory! Keep it up!
Annie sez: You are absolutely right, we live and die by the scale, but there is so much more going on than that number (but it's the most tangible thing we can measure, so it gets more attention than it should).
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you aren't letting the scale get you down! You're doing amazingly - and I'll let you know when I can reach my knees with my nose, haha!