Press On Through Discouragement

April has been a month full of celebrations. My birthday, Easter, our wedding anniversary and our oldest daughter's birthday all fall within the short month of April.  Staying on track during times of celebration is really hard, because nobody celebrates with broccoli, it's always sugar and fat, and yummy.

Despite the list of celebrations, I tried to make wise choices.  I opted for water instead of sweetened drinks, used a smaller plate and picked restaurants with smaller portions.  To counter act the extra "things" I also increased my daily steps and am consistently hitting between 10k and 12k steps per day.  By the end of April, I was back to eating raw veggies and lean proteins for most meals, and the weight just kept climbing.  I was so frustrated and discouraged.

I kept eating right and drinking water, walking and feeling like a failure all the while. The scale showed I'd gained back all but 4 pounds of the weight I'd lost in the first couple of months.  How in the world is that even possible?

Then a weird thing happened. Warning, TMI...  On Thursday morning, I did all the regular things then headed to the grocery store, where I bought veggies and hummus and all the healthy things.  While I was out, I had to go pee twice, and I wasn't gone that long.  I got home and I continued to run to the restroom.  Friday morning, I literally couldn't go on my morning walk because I was running to the bathroom every few minutes.  By Friday evening, I was back to "normal", and on Saturday when I weighed in, I was showing a 3 pound weight loss from the morning before.

What I realized is that the sugars and salt in the celebratory foods had caused inflammation.  After a couple of days of eating right and drinking more, my body suddenly released all that fluid it had been holding and the scale took a drastic change overnight.  

So, here's the thing, we have to keep making the best choices and keep doing the right things.  The body will respond in time, but we have to not let our "feelings" talk us into giving up when it appears we're stuck and the scale refuses to move, or moves in the wrong direction.

"Do what's right.  Do it right.  Do it because it's right."