A Weighting Game

Waiting, waiting, waiting, and physically shrinking gradually like removing a layer of paint daily, is a game of patience, perseverance, and faith. Dedication to a lifestyle change necessitates focus, commitment, and allegiance to a plan. Doubt dubs itself within the mix debating effort’s utility. Pounds dropping excruciatingly slowly and inconsistently, wave a flag to surrender, yet faith continues devotion to the weight loss game. Variables cause weight to zigzag, coast, and teeter like the scales of justice uncertain of which direction to lean. Digestion and metabolism, individual chemistry, and food sensitivities play roles in the results. Yet in the end, it is a “weighting” game.

After a month, culminating in six-tenths of a pound lost without roaming from the food plan, active exercise performed four days per week, and feeling unstressed, slim patience emerges. Weekly tweaking food choices and rotating exercise classes to foster change, scarce results illuminate persistence. Although slow weight loss, experts claim remains off longer than quick loss, these sluggish pounds demotivate. Asked if clothes are looser, body stronger, or inches gone and unfortunately, these non-scale outcomes are too small to measure. Water retention, constipation, and/or hormonal imbalances established from a slothful thyroid might contribute to the crawling, inch-by-inch process.

Although disappointed, a “staying the course” attitude backs the belief that justice will come when scales lean in my favor with a positive verdict. The fifth week deliberated a 3.8-pound verdict, looser pants, and leaner body validates the process. Singing praise for such slow results requires patience and conviction that the process is working even when invisible to the naked eye. The challenging waiting game make the rewards feel significant. When motivation wanes, and memories for choosing this lifestyle dissipate from the forefront of one’s mind, wavering between why proceed versus the ease of not, commences. Mindfully remembering “why” you began is vital for the weight loss journey to healing, patience, and continuity in a waiting game.

Within a lifestyle, no ending exists. Process continues, sustains, and ventures onto a non-linear path. Small vicissitudes, a few moments of regression, and the scale dipping downward, weight loss accumulates into a foundation for maintenance, expertise, and confidence continuing the journey. It replaces doubt, rebounded weight, and fear of old weight ascending again. The repeatable diets concluding in pounds lost and gained do not outweigh the measurable effect on confidence and experience built within a lifestyle destined for future weight maintenance. Diets are temporary; lifestyles are forever. Within this process, the extended time for inner healing has an opportunity to occur, guarding against weight recurrence. Deprivation, no sustainability, and metabolic slowdowns from restricted calories prevent diets from elongated success.

With no magic pill, a lifestyle is sustainable with support, self-care, and self-respect for what enters the body. Food for fuel as a motto, self-love as an internal compass, and increasing physical strength and energy, beam a spotlight on a lifelong plan. Time is an elixir that enables patience to meet expectations gradually. Maintaining this lifestyle is a new normal; boundaries are set surrounding social situations, and non-negotiable actions force eventual results, encouraging the numbers to drop on the scale. When living the lifestyle of “clean” eating consistently, slow is the speed required, and waiting, waiting, waiting is the game worth winning.