34.6 pounds of total weight loss so far. 1.2 pounds away from the Big Carrot. I am so close I can practically taste the "good bagels" now.
But I gotta say, these last three pounds have been the WORST. And I am not alone in my frustrations. All you have to do is Google "the last 5 pounds" and you'll get literally hundreds of hits of blog posts, articles, and weight loss forum threads worth of people frustrated to reach a plateau towards the end of their diet journeys.
According to The Internet, the reasons for the "phenomenon" of the stubborn last few pounds are varied.
Some dieters reach a plateau because their goal weight may simply be too low for their body type. For those people, experts recommend stopping at the plateau because they're likely to gain weight back once they reach the too-low goal and that can fuel a weight-gaining-frenzy. I don't think this is my problem; I am still very comfortably in the normal weight range and I could probably stand to lose about 10 more pounds before things get too unattainably low.
(Which is more than we can say for this season's Biggest Loser winner....)
Some dieters reach a plateau because of what I've decided to call "portion creep." Portion creep is the natural tendency to gradually--even imperceptibly--increase portion sizes of familiar foods over time. For instance, the 6 ounce glass of wine that the dieter used to painstakingly measure with a measuring cup can become a 9 ounce monster glass with way more calories than the dieter is counting.....and by the dieter, I am definitely not referring to me.....
Really. Definitely not me.
Okay, fine, maybe I've allowed happy hour to extend a little longer than 60 minutes lately.....(figuratively speaking). The remedy is simple enough. The Internet recommends temporarily getting back into the habit of measuring foods as a reminder of what the proper portion size should be. Looks like I'll be whipping out the friendly food scale again.....
Others of us find those last few pounds more difficult to lose because our bodies have entered starvation mode. I can only imagine this happens most frequently with people who eat a teeny tiny number of calories and don't exercise at all. I don't think this is my problem.
My biggest problem now is that it sort of just feels, well, trivial to fret over just 1-3 pounds.
Much like a spoiled kid with too large an allowance, I've lost sight of the value of a pound and haven't been trying hard enough to lose the last few. After losing nearly 35 pounds, it feels like "Oh, two pounds left? Psh....that's nothing." It makes it a lot easier to say yes to skipping the gym for a happy hour or having a second or third slice of pizza when it's "just" 3 pounds to go.
But I need to remember how hard I fought for each and every one of the pounds I've lost so far. Just because it's close to the end doesn't mean that the work stops here.
This weekend is going to be a bit of an exception to the rule because I have some pretty large events happening and the gym might be difficult to squeeze in, but after this weekend I need to double down and get this thing done.
Onward.
