So why am I more obsessed than ever today with the scale and my food plan?
Why did I weigh myself as soon as I got out of the bathroom and do a silent cheer when the number was a pound lower than yesterday, which unfortunately was a pound higher than the day before and 12 pounds higher than January 1st?
Why did I then drag open my food journal and menus to see how I can tweak things today to make sure I lose another pound instead of regaining that same one back? In fact, since February I’ve been bouncing up and down the same 5 pound range, whether I follow the food plan strictly and drown myself in water or eat pizza and bakery Texas-sized muffins, sometimes losing on pizza days and gaining on green/yellow veg only days.
Why did I forgo the very low impact workout I had planned because my sciatica has made all movement this week painful, thanks to 11 hours of standing in a hospital ER Sunday with the elderly relative, for a faster, high impact one that’s supposed to burn off more calories? And why did I already choose which strength training video to do tomorrow so I could add a fourth toning day, because as we all know, the more muscle the more calorie burning?
Why do I even want to lose weight now? Studies done show that it’s really not healthy for women over age 50 to lose substantial amounts of weight.
The data show that for these adults there is little relation between weight and mortality, except for those with a very low weight (BMI of 20 or below), who have higher death rates. A low BMI was associated with mortality even after control for a wide variety of measures, including short-term unintended weight loss. A high BMI showed no association with mortality, and the variables considered had little effect except that long-term weight loss had a profound effect on results. People who lost 10 percent of their body weight after age 50 had a relatively high death rate.
So why bother? Even my primary care physician hasn’t mentioned my weight the past 3 visits, after almost 30 years of harping on me about it. My cholesterol and glucose levels are the envy of his practice, even though I have a BMI in the 40’s. I follow a healthy, low-fat starch-based (veg) food plan 95% of the time and get in at least a half hour of exercise daily. The only times I go off the plan are when I get frustrated at the lack of weight loss, then pay the price with achy joints and swollen sinuses. This is better than most Americans of any size do.
So why do I care what the numbers on a piece of machinery say?
Today, I’m going to enjoy my food. I just got 2 new books in the mail – Happy Herbivore
and Unprocessed 
– both full of recipes geared towards the McDougall food plan. I already found loads of new things I want to try from both books, although I found Unprocessed to have a large amount of raw recipes and way too many sweets and nuts than any sane McDougaller should even consider eating. Still, now and then as a treat they should be fine, if I can convince my husband to have some with me so I don’t eat too many and work my way into hypoglycemia again.And I’m going to try get rid of the scale again. I can’t get rid of it completely, as my son and husband do climb on it occasionally, but I want it in a place that’s hard for me to get to so I’m not jumping on it every morning. This way I can concentrate on being a health fatty instead of trying to make this already healthy body thinner.
