Author: Diane Carbonell

A friend of mine is a member of quite a few weight loss groups. In one of the groups, a woman shared that she had recently lost a pound. Some people gave her the thumbs up sign but a few of them said to her, “A pound isn’t that big of a deal. Post again when you’ve really dropped some pounds.” My friend and I were surprised at the negativity. The incident prompted me to think about whether you really should celebrate if you’ve lost a single pound.

First of all, let’s talk about natural weight fluctuation.

Your weight naturally fluctuates throughout the day. You may think you lost a pound when in fact you sweated more than usual, were ill, had extra bowel movements, or drank lots of water.

Conversely, the scale can move up without a failure in your diet because of bloating, excessive sodium intake, constipation, or medications you are taking.

What It Takes to Really Lose a Pound

When you lose a pound while actively dieting it means you’ve created enough of a calorie deficit, about 3,500 calories, to see the loss of a single pound. You can achieve that in several different ways.

Here are some examples:

1. You’ve cut your typical calorie intake by 500 each day for a week.
2. You’ve combined burning calories through exercise with calorie reduction and lost a pound.
3. You’ve eaten just like you always have but burned a lot of calories at the gym and lost a pound.

When Not to Celebrate

If you haven’t been sticking to your diet at all but see your bathroom scale inch down by a pound, I wouldn’t celebrate. That pound loss is likely due to normal body weight fluctuations instead of an actual loss.

Be honest in your assessment of why the scale moved downward. Celebrating a faux loss may set you up for disappointment when the scale moves back to your normal body weight.

Another reason to be cautious in celebrating a single-pound loss is when you have gained and lost that same pound over and over for a week or two. This is a common indication of a diet that isn’t going very well.

For me, gaining and losing the same pound usually meant I was halfheartedly dieting. I’d do well for a few days, see the scale inch down, eat more than I should, and see the scale inch back up.

When and Why to Celebrate Losing a Pound

I did a little happy jig every time I lost a pound but I didn’t celebrate on the first day the pound disappeared from my body. I never believed it was a pound gone forever until the weight loss had appeared on the scale for a couple days in a row. Then I celebrated.

Weighing every day is something I frequently recommend to people who don’t get upset by normal body fluctuations. Part of the reason daily weighing can be a positive experience is that you can learn how your body reacts to salty foods, illness, medications, and normal hormonal changes.

The more in tune you are with your body, the more certain you can be that the pound you see gone from the scale is truly a pound gone due to hard work and dieting.

I encourage you to be honest in your assessment of whether the pound you see gone from the scale is a result of a good diet and regular exercise or a normal body weight fluctuation. If it is a result of the former, then celebrate and keep working hard until you reach your goal.

I once saw a cartoon about the differences between men’s and women’s brains. According to the illustration, men’s brains keep everything in their lives separated into nicely organized boxes: a box for relationships, a box for work, and a box for leisure. Women, on the other hand, have no boxes in their brains. Instead it’s just a big squiggle of lines connecting all areas of their lives.

If you are trying to lose weight, you might be compartmentalizing your weight loss experience. Here’s why you need to interconnect weight loss with the rest of your life.

A lot of people I speak to about weight loss try to lose weight independently from the rest of their lives. They try to put weight loss in its own special box.

Why do people tend to do this?

I think the reason is twofold. See if either of these fits you.

First, you want to continue living your life as you always have and don’t think that the rest of your life should be affected by weight loss.

Second, you view the weight loss experience as an item to check off the to-do list of your life.

I was guilty of both of these. I didn’t want to accept the fact that to lose weight successfully I needed to change more than just how much food I put in my mouth. And I surely didn’t want to believe I would have to make any of those changes for a lifetime.

Like many people, I wanted to lose weight and get back to my normal life.

The problem is that for most people who need to lose weight, habits in their normal life are what got them into weight trouble in the first place.

Look at the Whole of Your Life

You are much more than a number on a scale or how many pounds you’ve lost. Simply focusing on reducing the number without taking into account how that number affects the rest of your life is a mistake.

When you begin to lose weight, take inventory of what’s going on in your life. Think about things like:

• How current habits affect your weight
• The role that the relationships in your life play in your weight issues
• How your work affects your weight
• Your emotional eating behaviors

When you answer these questions you will probably see how intertwined your weight issues are with the whole of your life. I know I did.

Because of the natural intersection between your weight and your life, I want you to quit thinking about weight loss as a box to be checked, but instead as a step toward adopting a healthier lifestyle.

When you do that, you will be far more likely to maintain your weight loss for a long time.

So how do you adopt a total lifestyle change when losing weight?

Acknowledge that there are habits, people, and activities in your life that positively or negatively affect your weight. Embrace the positives and work on eliminating or minimizing the negatives.

When I finally changed habits that were causing me to gain weight, dealt with emotions and relationships interfering with my weight loss efforts, and learned to incorporate a healthy outlook on my work–life balance, I not only lost weight but kept it off permanently.

Challenges to lose weight have been around for a long time but gained popularity with the introduction of weight loss shows such as The Biggest Loser. You might see weight loss challenges on the internet, be invited to one in real life by a friend, or consider joining a weight loss challenge hosted by your office. Before you jump on the weight loss challenge bandwagon, make sure this type of challenge will be good for your long-term goals.

Years ago, when my weight hovered in the 300-pound range, I had never heard of a weight loss challenge until a friend of mine invited me to join her team for a small community challenge. I declined because I didn’t want to embarrass myself or cause her team to lose because I had never successfully lost weight on my own or in a group. Looking back, I think I made the right decision at the time.

What about you? Will participating in a challenge be a great kick-start to your weight loss goals?

Let’s find out.

Know Your Preferences

Know what your preferences are before you commit to joining a challenge.

If you like to keep your weight loss progress private, a weight loss challenge that requires publicly sharing your weight is not for you. Some weight loss challenges offer secret or private weigh-ins, while others require you to post pictures of you on the scale or weigh with a representative of the challenge.

You may be someone who likes to work out alone or lose weight without group interaction. If so, a challenge that encourages group interaction might not be for you. If, on the other hand, you love the accountability that a group affords, a weight loss challenge may be right up your alley.

Know the Rules

Each weight loss challenge has its own set of rules. Make sure you know what you are getting into. I had a friend who joined a challenge only to discover that she had to pay $50 into the pot for the eventual prize.

• Regular weigh-ins.
• No unhealthy diets.
• No use of commercial weight loss products such as Medifast or Jenny Craig.
• Required meeting attendance—usually for at-work or local challenges.

Pick a Fair and Reputable Challenge

The fairest type of weight loss challenges are those based on losing a percentage of your body weight rather than pounds lost. This evens the playing field between men and women.

If you join a team challenge, ask how the final results for the team are calculated. Some challenges discard the lowest competitor to avoid penalizing a team that has a member drop out. Others do not.

When deciding whether a challenge is fair and reputable, look at online reviews or talk to people who have participated in the challenge before. In general, challenges run by established community organizations are safe to enter.

Don’t Win at All Costs

A weight loss challenge can be a boost to your weight loss efforts, especially if you are motivated by prizes and recognition. Don’t try to win to the detriment of your health, however.

It doesn’t do you any good to starve yourself or exercise for hours a day just to win a prize. Unhealthy dieting habits, whether during a weight loss challenge or not, will never lead to long-term weight loss.

The chant my little children use on occasion when accusing a brother of cheating goes something like this: “Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater.” If I were to write a chant for weight loss cheaters it might be: “Cheater, cheater, chocolate eater.” I put myself squarely in the frequent diet cheater camp and apply the quote to myself because I was the queen of cheating on my diet. I used a lot of tricks to cheat on my diet, but the only person hurt by my cheating was me. Here are some common diet cheats and solutions on how to stop cheating yourself.

Trick #1: Fudging the Numbers

It’s pretty easy to know how many calories a food has. There is the USDA database, sites like MyFitnessPal, and even books. It’s also pretty easy to fudge your calorie numbers because after all, who but you knows exactly how much ice cream, yogurt, or fruit you ate?

I used to fudge the numbers when I filled out my Weight Watchers booklet, the food diary for my nutritionist, and even in a journal I kept just for myself. In some ways, writing down fewer calories than I ate gave me permission to have just a little bit more for the day. Obviously, you won’t lose weight if you are eating more than you need to drop pounds.

Solution #1

This is an easy one. Just stop. If you eat a bowl of ice cream that is 1 cup instead of 1/2 cup, write it down and calculate the correct number of calories. Be honest with yourself about servings and portions.

Trick #2: Conveniently Forgetting to Write Foods Down

I’ve met with a lot of clients who tell me, “Oh, yeah. I also had a few cookies, two sodas, and a bag of chips but I forgot to write it down.” I understand forgetting to write things down, but if you are doing it all the time you probably aren’t forgetting but choosing to forget.

Solution #2

Write down food and drink immediately after you eat or drink. Don’t wait until that evening or the next day. It all comes back to being honest with yourself.

Trick #3: Blaming a Lack of Weight Loss Anything But Overeating

Weight loss doesn’t happen in a straight line. There are times when you hit a weight loss plateau and times when your weight loss is just plain slow. But, if you are not losing weight at all or keep losing and gaining the same few pounds again and again, you are probably overeating.

Solution #3

For me, acknowledging that I wasn’t really 100 percent into my diet helped me move past the blaming my lack of progress on hormones, the weather, my husband, and the fact I was always tired. It may be that you need to restart your diet, recommit to living a healthier lifestyle, or take a break.

Trick #4: Overestimating Exercise Impact

I didn’t exercise much when I was morbidly obese, but when I did I was very generous with my estimation of how many calories I burned. I’d happily tell myself I had burned 500 or 600 calories during a 10-minute walk and then eat way more food than I needed.

Be skeptical of the calories-burned numbers on the computer panel of exercise machines or websites because they are often overestimated.

Solution #4

Don’t eat back any exercise calories you burn. If you just look at exercise as a way to get more fit and consider the calorie burn as a minor benefit, you will be less likely to reward yourself with extra calories for exercising.

Trick #5: Eating in Secret and Lying About It

Secret eating takes many forms. I ate secretly in the car and while the kids were napping. Other people I know take food into a room and scarf it down while their family is in another room.

I used to fib to my husband when he asked what happened to the ice cream in the freezer. I’d say I didn’t know when I knew exactly what happened to it. I had eaten it all earlier in the day.

Solution #5

Do your best to eat in the company of other people. Never eat in the car or sneak away to stuff some chocolate chips in your mouth.

At the end of the day, the only person you hurt by cheating on your diet is yourself. It doesn’t hurt your family or your friends if you cheat. Just you.

After years of cheating on my diet, I finally acknowledged this truth and lost weight once and for all. Don’t beat yourself up over cheating; instead, acknowledge it happened and promise to turn things around.

Obesity isn’t a condition that you should ignore or embrace. These days with plus-sized models on the cover of Sports Illustrated and the rise of the health at any size movement (HAES), you might find it hard to convince yourself to keep trying to lose weight because of size acceptance.

Former supermodel Chery Tiegs was recently criticized for saying that Ashley Graham, the plus-sized model featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated shouldn’t be celebrated because she wasn’t healthy. While Tiegs eventually clarified her quote, the incident revived the public discussion about the acceptance of obesity in our society.

Not everyone has the genetic makeup to be super slim nor the desire to be so, but there is a recommended weight range based on age, height, and sex. Falling outside that weight range on either side isn’t ideal for your health unless you are a super muscular bodybuilder or athlete.

When you see successful models like Graham, feel frustrated with your natural body type, or notice that almost everyone around you is overweight, you may start to feel as though losing weight is just a waste of time and effort.

If you’ve ever read any of the literature on the HAES movement, you will find that proponents of the movement believe that it doesn’t matter what the scale says, so long as you are healthy.

My argument against that way of thinking is that many of the people who promote HAES are young and haven’t yet felt the long-term impacts of their obesity. I’ve seen firsthand what years of obesity do to a person, and the consequences can be quite serious: diabetes, cellulitis, heart disease, high blood pressure, ruined knees, and even premature death. If those aren’t bad enough, the Cleveland Clinic has another long list of medical problems that go along with obesity.

Obesity is nothing to scoff at or brush under the rug.

So how do you ignore the increasing acceptance of obesity and keep going with your own weight loss efforts?

Be Your Own Person

Come to the place where you believe that losing weight is the best thing for you regardless of what messages the media, organizations, or even your friends send you.

Although I lost weight before the time when obesity was more accepted, I did have friends tell me to just “accept my size and quit worrying about losing weight.”

I’m glad I didn’t listen to them.

Listen to Your Doctor

Your doctor knows the health consequences of long-term obesity. If your doctor has been after you to lose weight, then don’t give up because some sectors of society tell you it doesn’t matter.

Think About Your Future

If you are on the fence about trying to lose weight, just think about your future. Living your life with 50, 100, or 150 pounds of extra weight isn’t easy. Just the other day I picked up a 50-pound bag of sand from the home improvement store and barely got it into the shopping cart. I remarked to my daughter, “I can’t believe I carried around the equivalent of three of those bags on my body for 10 years.”

Be Satisfied with Small Progress

It can be overwhelming to face the fact that you’ve got a lot of weight to lose. If that’s you, then take small steps and be happy when you make some progress. Think about your weight loss as a long-term project that may take time. As long as you are going in the right direction, it doesn’t matter if it takes you a while to get there.

Vacations don’t occur just one time each year. If you think about it, people go on vacation all the time. Eating to lose weight is challenging in the best of circumstances, but throw a vacation into the mix and you’ve got a recipe for weight loss trouble. If you are heading out on vacation soon, here’s how to come back home with no food regrets.

I used to look at vacations as a vacation from everything, including losing weight. Many clients I’ve coached and people I speak to felt the same way. One person said to me, “I blew my diet 100 percent when at the beach because I wanted to take a break from being good.”

This is a common way of looking at vacations and dieting, and if that’s how you want to treat your vacation, it’s fine. You can always lose the pounds gained during a vacation food fest.

However, if you are tired of going on vacation, gaining weight you had previously lost, and then having a hard time getting back on track, let me tell you that change is possible.

It’s all about preparation—both mental and physical. 

Mentally Preparing to Lose Weight on Vacation

You must begin your vacation preparation with the mentality that weight loss is not only possible while on vacation, but to be expected. Now, you don’t need to try to lose 5 or 10 pounds during a 7-day vacation, but dropping a half a pound to a pound during a week’s vacation is extremely doable and very motivating.

Tell yourself that you can continue losing weight on your vacation. Remind yourself of all the work you have done to lose weight before your vacation; the last thing you want to do is regain weight you’ve already lost.

Physical Preparation for Vacation Weight Loss

The first time I went on a short family vacation while I was in the midst of my successful weight loss, I was concerned I would gain weight. I decided to be proactive before the vacation began and make preparations for a healthy vacation experience.

Here’s what I suggest you do:

1) Pack some healthy snacks to take with you.

If I’m traveling by plane I take sturdy fruits (like apples, pears, and oranges), trail mix, homemade granola bars, and small boxes of dried fruit. If I’m driving I also bring a cooler with yogurt, cheese sticks, boiled eggs, or sandwiches.

2) Contact your host or hostess if you are staying with friends or family.

Take the initiative and have a heart-to-heart talk with the people you are staying with on your vacation. Tell them you really want to stick to your diet and would like to be involved with the cooking and planning process.

3) Make room in your luggage for your workout clothes.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. I always bring my workout clothes along with me. Having them packed in your suitcase is a reminder that you are not on vacation from healthy living.

4) Check out gym options or walking paths.

When I get to where I’m going, I look for the fitness center in the hotel or ask my hostess for walking path suggestions. You don’t have to be obsessive about getting in your workout, but knowing where you can work out is a good first step to actually doing one.

5) Go over your daily schedule in your mind, including eating options.

Before you head out on vacation, mentally review your likely schedule. Try to plan ahead for what to eat at restaurants, decide when to fit in a workout, and commit to not snacking unnecessarily.