Tag Archives: scale

Losing Some Weight (or Confused If This Is Good)

When I got sick, my food got weird for a while. The day I spent in the hospital, all I had for food was a cup of chicken broth. The next few days were pretty similar and I slowly added more soft foods in. Even at Disneyland, I was eating soft foods with having a Dole Whip and soup. I’ve been keeping this toward soft and bland food for 2 weeks now.

I’m finally starting to eat a bit more normally, but I’m still restricting things a lot. I’m a bit paranoid because I know I ate poorly right before I got sick. I have no clue if that is what caused the stomach pain, but right now it’s not worth the risk. I’m trying to keep things very basic, but my calorie counts are much closer to what I know I should be eating in a day (compared to being under 800 calories in a day with the broth and limited soft foods).

I will be asking the doctor that I see next week if there are any food restrictions I need to be aware of to help my liver, but I don’t think I’ll be eating the way that I did before for a while. This could be a very good thing. Maybe this shock to my system will help me get over binge eating. I’m trying to not be too optimistic because I know that a relapse is always possible. But with the exception of the time that I was doing the RFO diet, right now is the longest I’ve gone without a binge episode.

Because of my restricted food and lack of bingeing, I’ve lost quite a bit of weight recently. Since getting sick, I’m down almost 20 pounds. It’s insane to me and I know that type of weight loss is not realistic and is a result of not eating enough several days in a row. I don’t want to gain the weight back, but I’m aware that some of the loss might be water weight and might come back before I’m able to lose it again.

I personally didn’t notice a huge difference in how I look even with that much weight loss. I figured that my clothes were fitting looser, but nobody could see that so I figured nobody would notice the loss. But this past week especially, people in my life have been coming up to me and saying how I look like I’ve lost a bunch of weight. It’s great to hear compliments like that, but I also feel like I don’t deserve them.

This weight loss wasn’t because of hard work. It was because I got sick possibly because of my eating disorder and the results of being sick (ironically, in the past I usually gain weight when I’m sick so this is very odd to me). I didn’t do anything to earn the weight loss. There’s a chance that it will come back so I don’t know if I want others to see it because I don’t want people to notice if I gain it back.

I’m trying to be gracious when people compliment me and say thank you. But when close friends say something, I’m usually honest and say that I only lost weight because I was sick and I didn’t do anything for it. It’s a confusing place to be in since I’ve been working so hard to lose the weight, but I don’t feel right that I made the scale because of this.

I don’t want this all to be in my head too much. Hopefully, I’ll be able to continue the weight loss on my own and this will be a trend that is able to continue. It is weird to me to lose weight normally since I usually have only done it in an extreme way and it was expected that I would lose weight quickly. I hope that this feels normal to me sooner rather than later because I am loving the fact that I’m doing so great with food right now. I don’t want to go back, but I know that I have to work really hard to try to make that not happen.

Replacing My Scale (or Somehow It Wasn’t A Big Deal To Me This Time)

I’ve seriously had a love/hate relationship with the scale. I refuse to look at any scale other than my own because I know that the scale might not be calibrated correctly and I’m not being weighed in the condition that I always weigh myself in (which is first thing in the morning after going to the bathroom and before I eat or drink anything). If I have to get weighed in somewhere (like at the doctor or for an Orangetheory challenge), I do blind weight where I step on the scale backwards and don’t find out what it says.

I’ve had panic attacks related to my scale. If I have to replace it, I feel like all the effort I had previously put into my weight loss is worthless because the new scale might weigh me differently than the old one. I’m aware how crazy that sounds, but panic attacks aren’t rational and that’s really what my crazy brain thinks. So I’ve gone months in the past without a working scale (which doesn’t help my panic attacks either because I’m terrified I’ve gained a ton of weight and don’t know it), or I search high and low for the exact same scale I previously owned thinking that somehow that would make a difference.

I don’t know when this issue with the scale started, but it’s been like this for a very long time. So when my scale was acting weird I got really nervous. I would step on the scale and a variety of error messages came up. But since it would eventually zero out I thought I could weigh myself. But I would get such an extreme range of weights from the scale. It could start at 375 pounds and then go down to 17 pounds and everything in between. So I knew that something wasn’t right and it needed to be fixed.

First, I changed out the batteries thinking that it would fix the issue. But even with the new batteries I had the exact same error messages (mainly it was an overload message which shouldn’t have happened because the scale is good up to 400 pounds and I’m not near that weight at all). So since the new batteries didn’t work, I immediately went on the search for a new scale and was scared that it would take a long time to be ok with a new one.

I’m shocked that I went onto Amazon, found a scale with decent ratings, and felt totally ok ordering it right then and there. Because of Amazon Prime the new scale was at my doorstep early the next morning and the old scale went immediately into the trash.

New Scale

As soon as the new scale was set up (I’m happy that it came with batteries so I didn’t have to buy them), I stepped on it. I weighed 4 pounds more than I did on my old scale, but that’s ok. That is my new current weight and as long as this scale keeps working that will be the weight that I will be working with.

It was as simple as that. No panic attacks (although I was mad that my scale broke and the company had gone out of business so I couldn’t get a replacement or any help) and I’m fine with the new scale. I don’t know what changed in my life to make this so much easier than all the other times I’ve had to do it in the past. I still plan on doing blind weights when I’m not at home, but I know that doing that will keep me from worrying what the scale says at other places or under other conditions. I wish that so many other things that cause me panic attacks or anxiety could go away for no reason like this did. So many things would be so much easier if that happened, but I know that it’s a bit of an unrealistic dream.

I’ve got a few other things coming up that have always caused me panic that I haven’t had to deal with recently (more on that in another post) and I’m cautiously optimistic that somehow they will be easier for me now. I had that experience at the dentist recently and there really is no reason for it. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the Vyvanse dose I’m taking. It’s supposed to make my panic/anxiety disorder worse, but maybe it’s making it better?

I can only hope that that’s true.

Ending My Scale Hiatus (or That Will Be A One-Time Experiment)

When I set the goal to not step on my scale during the Nike ID Challenge at Orangetheory, I knew it was going to be tough. I had no idea it would be as bad as it was.

At first, it wasn’t that horrible. Because weighing myself first thing in the morning is a habit, it did seem weird the first few mornings not getting on the scale. It felt like I was forgetting to do something while getting ready for my day.

It helped that part of this challenge happened over Thanksgiving. I’m used to not weighing myself when I’m out-of-town (although I have traveled with my scale in the past). While I was in San Diego, I didn’t miss weighing myself.

But as soon as I got home from Thanksgiving, it got really bad. I wanted to weigh myself to see how “good” I was over Thanksgiving. I use the scale as a reality check when in my head I feel like I gained 10 pounds from one meal. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever stop having that fear. But the scale is a good way to look at the numbers in black and white and take the emotion out of it.

But I wasn’t able to get that fear out of my head. I thought about ending my no-scale challenge, but I really wanted to prove to myself that I was able to do it.

After Thanksgiving, not weighing myself in the mornings was causing me to have some mini panic attacks. They weren’t as bad as they can get, but I was feeling anxious and uneasy for a while in the mornings.

Then, this past weekend when my challenge was almost over, I had a massive panic attack. I have no idea if the no-scale challenge caused it, but it’s possible. It was one of the panic attacks where I sweat like crazy, my vision is blurry and blacks out a little, and I ended up passing out (fortunately, I know that sometimes I pass out so I was waiting out the panic attack on my bed so I didn’t get hurt). I passed out for a few minutes and when I came to, I was feeling a bit better. I was able to breathe normally again and I continued on with my day.

Finally, yesterday my challenge ended. I did lose a little weight over the past month, but it wasn’t more than I usually lose in a month. Not stepping on the scale didn’t help me lose weight nor did it make me happy. So this is the end of that challenge, and I have no plan on ever doing it again.

I’m not sure if I will weigh myself every day like I used to. But if I do, I’m totally ok with that. If stepping on the scale every day helps me stay calm and not have to deal with panic attacks, it’s worth it. And while many people might disagree with my decision because you really should only weigh yourself once a week, I’m finding out what works for me. And I’m finally ok with the fact that sometimes things that don’t work for anyone else really do work for me and don’t harm me in any way.

But I am proud of myself that I was able to stick with this challenge and prove to myself that while it wasn’t fun, it can be done.

 

Attempting To Go Scale-Free (or A Personal Challenge)

While I’m attempting Orangetheory’s latest challenge, I’ve decided to try a challenge of my own for the next 30 days.

I want to see if I can go the next 30 days without stepping on my scale.

I honestly don’t know if I can do this, and if I can’t make it all 30 days I’m not going to be too upset with myself. But I want to see if I can judge my weight goals without the scale telling me what I weigh.

Right now, I use the scale as a safety blanket in a way. When I eat too much, I weigh myself the next day to prove that I haven’t gained back everything I lost. I might have gained a few pounds, but I can lose them again. But without seeing the number on the scale, to me it feels like I might have gained 20 or 30 pounds overnight.

I’ve been forced to go scale-free before when my scale has broken, but I’ve never done it voluntarily. I might put my scale in my car or one the top of my closet so I’m not tempted to weigh myself (right now my scale lives in my bathroom).

For a good part of next week, I won’t be able to weigh myself at all because I will be out-of-town at Thanksgiving. So that will hopefully help me reach my goal of going scale-free until the end of the Orangetheory challenge.

My original plan was to weigh myself yesterday and then weigh myself at the end of the 30 days to see where I am, but I actually forgot to weigh myself yesterday morning before I ate breakfast. And I can’t weigh myself after eating because that makes the scale higher than it should be. I don’t necessarily weigh myself every day, so the last time I weighed myself was on Friday last week.

So I’ll use that as my start number and see what my end number ends up like.

I’m still going to be tracking calories and exercise, so I’ll know if I’m doing ok with my daily calories. But I won’t have the instant results by stepping on the scale the morning after a “good” day. I’m curious how that might affect my motivation to stay on track (I usually feel extra motivated when I see the results that I desire).

My only fear with this challenge/experiment is if this will cause me to have a panic attack. I can see how one can come on from this, and if I see or feel any signs that I am about to have an attack, I will have to make a decision then if I want to wait out the attack and try to continue going scale-free or if it isn’t worth it to me to continue.

The fear of having a panic attack is the main reason why if I can’t complete this challenge I won’t be too upset with myself. I know that the only way I won’t be able to do it is if something like that happens and I feel like my mental health is suffering because of this. I don’t want to have a bunch of panic attacks or have to take my meds more than I need to. So I will do what it takes not to have that result.

So far, 2 days down and 28 to go on this personal challenge. No matter how far into this challenge I go, I’m curious what the results will be.

Getting Weighed In (or A New Orangetheory Challenge)

On Sunday, after recovering from my birthday parties, I went in to Orangetheory. This time, however, I was not there to work out.

I was getting weighed in for the start of the Orangetheory Weight Loss Challenge!

I’m still in my personal 8 week Orangetheory challenge (that goes through next week), but when I found out that there was a 6 week weight loss challenge, I wanted in. And when I found out that the male and female winners get $1000, I was totally in!

Because my weight loss has been slow, I’m trying to be cautious and just lose at my 2 pounds per week usual. The goal that was set for me was 15 pounds in 6 weeks. So that’s a little more than I’ve been losing, but it gives me something to strive for.

There are about 20 other women in the challenge (and only 7 men total), so there is a lot of competition. But I’m going to try my best and hardest and maybe I’ll come out victorious!

The weigh in process on Sunday was pretty simple. I had some paperwork to fill out and then I waited my turn for the scale.

I would have totally taken a picture of the weigh in, but it was done in the bathroom so you would have seen me standing on a scale next to a toilet. Not the prettiest picture.

The scale measured our weight (obviously), our body fat percentage, and the pounds of lean muscle mass that we have. For me, I want all of those numbers to be lower. I’d like my body fat percentage to be cut in half (the trainers there think that that is a very realistic long-term goal). And I’d like to keep as much lean muscle mass as possible (right now, I have 130 pounds of lean muscle).

After weighing in, there were some before photos taken (fortunately, not in the bathroom) and a quick interview about why I signed up for the challenge.

And that was it!

The rules of the challenge are that you have to work out 3 times a week (which I already am), be a member of Orangetheory (which I will be after next week), and pay a $25 entry fee (which I was fine paying because I don’t pay for classes yet and maybe I’ll get $1000 in return). Not too tough.

While I know that the weight will play a lot into who wins, I do want to see what I can do with my body fat percentage in 6 weeks. I did a little research online and it says that it’s recommended that people lose 1-2% of their body fat in a month. So I’d like to see maybe a 2-3% drop in my body fat percentage this month.

My scale at home only does weight. I used to own a fancy scale, but it died. I wanted something cheap, so I didn’t get one with a body fat measurement on it. I know that the scales with body fat and other measurements aren’t always accurate, but they are accurate against themselves. So maybe after these 6 weeks and getting weighed in on the Orangetheory scale, I’ll look into a nicer scale than the one that I own.

I’m halfway through the first week of this challenge, so I’ve got 5 1/2 weeks left. And in my original challenge, I’m coming up on the end of week 7! Holy moly! Time did really fly by!

Measuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale)

Even though I know historically I always gain weight when I’m sick, I decided to torture myself and step on the scale on Wednesday (on the 3rd day I was sick and when I was finally starting to feel a bit better). I had recorded every single calorie I consumed while sick (even ever 15 calories I drank when I had Emergen-C) and was pretty much under 1,000 calories each day (about 600 less than my usual goal). Want to know what happened?

Compared to my weight on Sunday, the last time I weighed myself, I gained 7 pounds.

I knew this would probably happen. I shouldn’t have weighed myself because now I’m just upset about it. Those 7 pounds weren’t easy to lose. And hopefully they will come off quickly now that I’m starting to feel better. They could just be water weight. But I don’t know why I have to be pretty much the only person in the world who gains weight while they are sick.

Even though this was expected, it still put me in a funk. It didn’t help that I was still dealing with a fever (which finally broke on Wednesday around lunchtime) and was taking a second day off of work (which means less money earned). I wasn’t able to go out and do something to cheer myself up.

So I decided to do another measurement of my body. I haven’t done one of these in a while so I wasn’t sure what the results would be.

While I had gained a half inch on my waist and on my hips, everywhere else I had lost! I had lost 1.5 inches off my arms, 2 inches off my bust, 1 inch off my belly (where my belly button is), and 1.5 inches off my leg! That’s a lot!

It’s also proof that the work I’m putting in is working. It’s working slowly, but that’s ok. It’s going in the right direction.

Even though I’m not happy at all about the scale, I am happy that I stepped on it. It forced me to go back to doing body measurements to look at my progress. I need to be more committed to doing those on a regular basis. Maybe once a month? The scale seems to be such a liar to me sometimes. I need something else that feels truthful.

Hopefully these 7 pounds come off as quickly as they showed up. Even though my inches are down, I want the scale to be down too.

Busting Out Of A Funk (or Controlling My Happiness)

For some reason on Wednesday evening, I was in a very bad mood. It didn’t have anything to do with the game show, but I’m wondering if that triggered something in me. It was such high energy at the taping and then I came home to an empty house. And I was very hungry because my last meal was before leaving in the morning for the taping (there were snacks for sale there, but it was all junk food).

I ended up eating a dinner that I know that I should not have had. It was not within my calorie goal for the day and it was extremely high in sodium. I regretted it immediately, but what was done was done.

On Thursday morning, I weighed myself to own up to my mistake. My scale was up 8 pounds. Now I know that there is no way I gained 8 pounds with that meal (that would mean my meal was 28,000 calories). But even though I knew that with my head, my heart said something different.

So I spent Thursday morning in a bit of a funk as well. I stayed in bed late reading but I couldn’t get myself into a better mood.

Finally, I decided that I couldn’t wallow all day long. I thought about ways to make myself feel better, but nothing was making the memory of my scale go away.

I was playing with some of the new features on my phone when I thought of something. I had not taken measurements of myself since March. First of all, as an actor it is extremely important to always have updated measurements of yourself. You never know when you will be at Disneyland enjoying the rides when you get a text message from your agents asking for your exact hip measurements (true story). So I have my measurements on my phone in a note app.

But those measurements were done so long ago that I thought maybe they would have changed. So I got my tape measure out and did my measurements again.

And they all have changed! Since March I’ve lost half an inch off of my arms and legs, 1 inch off of my bustline, 1.5 inches off of the largest part of my stomach, and 2.5 inches off of my waist and hips! I know I’ve got a way to go, but it’s something! And while I feel like my scale might lie to me all the time, measurements are pretty accurate!

I will not be giving up on weighing myself. It’s something that I need to do to feel like I’m in control. But I will be trying to do measurements more often. Perhaps once a month. I need to do it for my acting career to give to potential jobs, but more importantly I need to do it to keep things in perspective. While I’m not getting smaller as quickly as I have in the past (or would like to), I am getting smaller!

Reality TV (or How Losing 200 Pounds Can Be Something That Is Booed)

I’ll admit that reality tv is one of my guilty pleasures. I love “America’s Next Top Model”, “The Amazing Race”, and “Food Network Star”. But I also watch a couple of weight loss related reality tv like “The Biggest Loser” and “Extreme Weight Loss”.

One reason that I enjoy the weight loss reality shows is because most of the time, the people at the beginning are in a worse place than me. I know this is a horrible thought, but it’s nice to see that I’m not the most out of shape person in the world. And it gives me a bit of hope that maybe I can win this battle eventually.

But there are a lot of negative things about these shows. First of all, they are extremely unrealistic. The contestants on them typically aren’t working their jobs (and they get a small stipend from the show for participating). Also, they are working out sometimes 5 or 6 hours a day. If you have a job, you probably don’t have the time to do that. Sometimes contestants on these shows also have either a chef or food delivery service so they don’t have to worry about their food.

Another negative thing about these shows is how the contestants feel about weight loss. On “The Biggest Loser”, when a contestant loses 7 or 8 pounds in a week, they feel like they are a failure. Sometimes the other contestants mention how that person isn’t doing enough. Seriously?!?!?! If I lost 7 pounds in a week I’d be so excited!

But something that really ticked me off happened on this week’s “Extreme Weight Loss”. If you don’t watch the show, it takes place over 1 year and each episode follows one person’s journey. This week is was a girl name Alyssa. She weighed over 400 pounds when everything started. The show gives weight loss goals for every 3 months. She met her first weight loss goal and then started to struggle with the second. And in her struggle, she started to have anorexic and bulimic tendencies. The host of the show did offer her help and had her do a blind weigh in (this is something I have to do at the doctors because I don’t trust their scale).

At the final weigh in for Alyssa, they did it in front of all her friends and family (this is the format for the show). She weighed in and had lost over 200 pounds in one year! But she was a few pounds short of her overall weight loss goal, so when the final number came up, the crowd booed. My mouth dropped open when I watched that. Since when is losing 200 pounds something to boo about? They should be cheering her on no matter what.

But I guess that wouldn’t make good reality tv.

Will I still watch these weight loss reality shows? Yes. They do have good tips in them and they do help motivate me. But I really hope that other people watching can see how what they see on tv isn’t always the most helpful thing when trying to lose weight.

While it may be reality tv, it isn’t reality.

My Love/Hate Relationship with the Scale (or Can I Drop Kick a Scale without Hurting Myself?)

One thing that I’ve found in common with most people with eating disorders is the love/hate relationship people have with their scale.

I used to love my scale. I would weigh myself dozens of times a day. After I ate a meal, after taking a shower, after using the bathroom, before and after a workout. I was obsessed with the daily fluctuations of the numbers on my scale. I learned how to manipulate it to my advantage before I had weigh ins at my therapist. If I had a huge meal before I was going to see her, I knew exactly what to do to make the scale be either the same or only a little higher than what it was last time. As much as I’ve tried to forget some of these things, some of it is stuck in my head. I will always remember that the Chinese food binge that I enjoyed would add 5 pounds on the scale. The gain was a mix of the amount of food and the bloating from sodium.

The scale that I had back then broke. I was devastated. I couldn’t bring myself to buy a new scale. That old one was my friend and I trusted it. And that exact model wasn’t made anymore so I couldn’t find an exact replacement.

After a few months of not having a scale. My mom bought one for me without me knowing it. If I had known she was going to do that, I would have told her no. I didn’t want another scale. I didn’t know if I could trust another one.

I’ve had that new scale for several years now. I’m still obsessed with the number on it, so I make a big effort to only step on the scale once a day. That doesn’t happen all the time, but I’m trying.

But recently, my scale has been showing signs of it not working quite right. I’ll weigh myself and somehow I’m 8 pounds lower than yesterday. I step off and get back on, and I’m at 1 pound less than yesterday. If I step on it a few times in a row in the morning, it can be as big as a 10 pound difference.

This is a huge problem for me and keeping my mind in the right mindset. So with the long weekend ahead, I think I’m going to venture out to Bed, Bath, & Beyond (with a coupon), and look into getting a new scale. I might go for a less high-tech one because I feel that might help the lifespan of my scale. Right now, my scale does weight and body fat and has 3 profiles on it for different family members. I don’t need all of that.

All I need is a scale that I can use and hopefully love more than hate.