Plateau or Platypus

As the weather in the Midwest can't make up it's mind weather we are going to get warmer or colder, rain or sunshine, and in some cases snow.  Perhaps Mother Nature has hit a plateau and is unsure as to how to remedy her situation to bring spring into full force in order to turn into the warm and humid Iowa summer we are currently looking forward to.

So after taking a leap a faith, I decided to step on the scale AND guess what?  Absolutely NO DIFFERENCE since I did my 7 month weigh in.  That's been two weeks and I would say that is a plateau or platypus, they are similar if you think about it.  They both are strange creatures that you wonder how they are what they are.  The platypus has a bill and a flat tail, it lays eggs but is considered a mammal and the male has an ankle spur that makes it venomous.  So you can see that this animal is very much like a plateau in weight loss.  It has so many different aspects and you have no reason why it is the way it is. When you plateau there is no reason for it, you are trying to alternate workouts and eating the recommended foods.  But it sneaks up on you and doesn't even send you a memo to say, "Hey, this is your body and we are taking a break from encouraging you by losing weight, we decided that no matter what you do, we are just going to stay in this comfort zone and you are just going to have to deal."

Unlike the platypus that took millions of years to evolve, my weight loss plateau evolved all by it's self.  Am I at my goal weight, NOPE!  I have a bit to go.  I'm not going for the size 2 model if I eat an M&M it looks like I have a food baby, but to be in the normal range of the BMI would be good for me.

So what to do.  As a person who likes to write down pros and cons lists, I decided to take a quick look at what I've been doing the last 30 days.  I opened my Fitness Pal app and took a good hard look at it. I can easily see that I'm sneaking in snacks (be it protein bars, granola, or veggies) more in the last 30 days.  After thinking about it, I don't think I was hungry but "thought" I needed it.  I saw a pattern that I didn't like.  So there's culprit number one.  I see I was getting a bit lazy in my eating.  No I wasn't in a closet binge eating large quantities of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting all while chasing it down with a chocolate shake.  But I was consuming more calories in a day than I thought. Although it be healthy versions, it was a matter of quantity than quality.

With a touch of a finger, I looked at my workout routine.  Yes I workout 6 and sometimes 7 days a week, but I can see there was a distinct pattern.  I thought I was alternating what I did, but after looking, I could tell that I wasn't as consistent as I thought.  So being the Excel spreadsheet queen that I am, I am putting together a schedule to follow for the next 30 days, plus I'm adding a workout called PiYo which has yoga, pilates, and cardio each day.  So I decided in order to plow through this plateau I need to up my game, pull up my big girl britches, there is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs, and put my nose to the grindstone (that's all the quotes I can think of).

Will this hurdle me over my plateau, or will it leave me in a state of wonder like the platypus?  Time will only tell.  Change is scary and repetition is safe.  I believe I have slowly gotten into a repetition without realizing it, but the lucky thing is, I woke up when I stepped on that scale.  Do I expect a loss every time I step on the scale?  In the perfect world, YES, in reality, NO!  But it did slap me in the face and tell me to wake up and evaluate what I was doing.

Now I wasn't expecting to have to cash a reality check today, but guess when the bill is due it's due!

But the good thing is I came to this conclusion now, not 4 months from now and way before I reverted back to old patterns and started to see a climb in my number rather than a decline!

Every step forward be it big or small, is forward and that is my goal.  Don't get discouraged, get encouraged!  What happened yesterday can't be fixed, but what happens today can.  You can't stop the waves of the ocean, but you can learn to surf!!!! (I'm putting that on my bucket list)

 Life is a chain reaction, it's up to you whether it be positive or negative.  I vote for positive!!!

Be you a platypus or in a plateau, make the decision to be unique!

So I leave you this week with one of my favorite quotes by Gandhi.