Through Thick and Thin #14 (February 17, 2003)
WLS Peaks & Plateaus
I don't need any help dealing with my WLS peaks — dramatic weight loss, improving health and fitness, freedom from blood sugar pricks, insulin and CPAPs, shrinking circumferences, compliments and praise. These are very easy to handle. However, dealing with my present weight plateau is a real challenge.
These last few weeks (mid-way through my fourth month post-op) I have experienced a sudden and disturbing plateau in my weight loss. The scale tells me I haven't lost a pound in two weeks, after sustained periods during which I averaged losing one pound a day. Nothing about my weight loss and fitness program has changed, except for the results. I'm continuing to vigorously walk 1.5 – 3.5 miles daily, and I'm eating healthy foods (and Real Meals shakes) in very small and prudent amounts.
Faith, trust and keeping a positive attitude are my challenges when the scale doesn't move. How do you respond when your weight loss stalls? Here's the disjointed route my feelings drag me, at least until I regain my emotional balance and gather my wits:
The first place I tend to go is guilt and shame. It's like that's my “default” setting. I must be doing something wrong. I guess so many years of assaulting myself with blame about my morbid obesity has created a reflexive reaction. Yet I know, on a rational level, there's no basis for guilt. I'm doing everything right; I'm being careful with my caloric intake and consistent with my caloric burns from exercise.
When I reject my initial feelings of guilt, blame and shame, I seem to turn next to skepticism and cynicism. I must be the sole exception that will prove the rule. WLS surgery won't work for me. It's all over. Despair. Helpless and hopeless.
And then I listen to my “still small inner voice”. I listen to my wife. I listen to what my peers are sharing in the email groups. I reread the WLS books. I call my doctor's office for reassurance. I recalculate my caloric intake to make sure that it's appropriately low. I repeat my affirmation mantras with increased fervor. I redouble my commitment to exercise. And then, slowly, I begin to regain my confidence, hope and optimism.
Apparently most people experience periodic plateaus after their WLS. My metabolism may be consolidating and shifting. It's also possible that my exercise is turning body fat into trim and solid muscle (that's how it feels and looks) and that might limit weight loss even as my body continues to grow slimmer and more fit.
Here are the two most important things I've decided to do to respond to this plateau: work on bolstering my faith AND stay away from the scale. This may seem counter-intuitive, since the scale may offer the only scientific, objective way to prove my continuing weight loss. But this strategy represents MY path to serenity, sanity and renewed trust. Because focusing upon the scale and the numbers “feeds” my obsessive, compulsive, insanity-producing fears and anxieties. My addiction to dieting. For me, for today, I'd rather trust than lust for the scale's reassurance.
I'll drop by my doctor's office when it's convenient, sometime in the next week or so, but until then I'll just keep working my program and strengthening my faith that my tiny tummy, my reduced caloric intake, and my enhanced caloric burns will, in the long run, produce the 180 lb. weight loss I seek. (I'm presently stalled at 75 pounds down, although my clothes are hanging off me like tarps on a clothesline.) This is how I intend to transform my first plateau into another peak.
I'd love to know how you deal with plateaus, and hope you'll let me know.
Glenn
P.S. I'm writing this one day after I wrote and sent you my newsletter #14, WLS Peaks and Plateaus, and the irony is blowing me away! I had an emergency situation today that required that I visit my doctor, so — what the heck — I got on the scale. My plateau has transformed into a mountain slope again (smile). I’ve lost another 8 pounds, which brings me to -83 in my 3.5 months. It’s working for me because I’m working for it.
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