This entire post is simply one of support and reassurance for anyone that might be struggling with something. I woke up this morning and man, was I pissed.

I’ve done everything right. I’m working out. I’m eating right. I’ve cut my carbs by 75% a day. And I got on the scale this morning and I had gained weight. Holy shit was I mad.

But then I remembered that this is all part of it. Once you lose that first 10 lbs. You are going to roller coaster. Whether it takes you a week or a month to lose 10 lb, once you do you’re going to have a few up and down days. It’s simply your body learning to adjust to the new lifestyle. I don’t want to get into the science of it. There are plenty of articles out there if you need to read about it from blow hard science geeks. I’m going to tell you what I know from Real World Experience having owned two gyms.

Once you drop that first 10, your body kind of reacts because it doesn’t want you to whittle away and die. That’s it. Your body’s just trying to save itself.

Stay the course.

Keep doing your workouts the way you’ve been doing them. If you want to up the intensity a little bit go ahead. Drink lots of water. Stay on track with your food intake. Focus on what you want to weigh at the end of the next two weeks. Find a goal in your head that you want to shoot for 2 weeks from the day you discovered that you were roller coastering. And don’t pick some giant number because it’s not going to happen. Once you hit the roller coaster point you need to pick a number in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 lb over the next two weeks.

5 lb in 2 weeks is a lot. That’s a two and a half pounds a week. That’s a solid solid number.

The problem is that, when we drop weight quickly, we lose perspective. We raise expectations to an unobtainable level.

Normal, healthy, diet and exercise should result in 2-3 lbs a week AT THE MOST.

We forget that.

I weigh myself every morning. And I’m a proponent of weighing yourself every morning if you are trying to accomplish something. After all you can’t know what you did wrong during the course of the week if you can’t pinpoint what caused you to gain weight. That being said it’s important not to overreact. If you step on the scale in your up a half a pound, that’s no big deal. If you step on the scale in your Up 3 lbs from the day before, well now you have an issue. Now, you’ve done something the day before that cause you to gain weight. 9 times out of 10 it’s going to be that you ate more calories than you thought you did. Or you realize, as in my case, that you’ve gone 2 out of the last 3 days without a really hard workout because you had other stuff going on. Maybe you half assed your workouts, like me.

So being up a pound or two on the scale is kind of like a yield sign when you’re driving too fast. Slow down, look both ways make sure everything is good and then keep going

So I’m off to the heavy bag now. I didn’t get a very good night sleep last night because the dog woke me up at 4:45 in the morning and I had to get up at 5:30 and go do some work, but that’s okay. Onward we go.

Peace