I’ve figured out something painfully obvious — something I should have figured out many years ago.

The times when I’m in pain are the times I’m most likely to get frustrated with my weight loss, and usually, when I’m in pain, it’s because I’ve gained weight. It’s a vicious conundrum, and a lesson I need to get through my thick head.

Er… slightly less than stepping on a Lego, but up there.

I’ve been in pain for around a week and a half. Mind you, I have chronic issues and I live with a certain amount of pain daily; what I’m talking about is over and above those norms. It’s been like a return to the levels of pain I had when I first started this journey a couple of years ago.

I know the cause: I decided to take a few days and relax my usually strict eating. When that happens, I gain a lot of water weight — and fast. When I carry excessive water weight, my joints hurt, particularly my knees, and if they become inflamed, my right knee will lock. I had that happen while I was camping; my knee goes out of alignment and I have to use my brace to straight it out, or I can’t put weight on my leg. Believe me, there is never, ever a good time for this to happen, but particularly while camping.

After it locks and I manage to get it unlocked, it’s painful for a few days; add water weight and sore joints, and I might as well be back at square one: unable to stand for more than a minute or two without sitting, unable to walk without a pronounced limp and a great deal of pain. Because of the pain, I move less, so there’s less chance of me actually triggering all that excess water to get the heck out of my body.

I also end up limiting what I can do and where I can go; for instance, I’ve needed to grocery shop for several days, but I haven’t, because walking has been too painful. Believe me, the pain is beyond frustrating, especially because it gets in my head and I start feeling like I’ve gone backwards; that the efforts I made to lose 114 pounds have been meaningless.

That’s a dangerous place to visit, let alone live. Just the fact of gaining water weight should be a dire reminder to never return where I once was, but my brain works in the opposite direction and whispers if this isn’t going to work, why keep up the effort? Why not enjoy that burger with fries? Why not get a chocolate shake along with it?

There is one sure thing: giving up and eating anything I want has never resulted in weight loss. It’s not the answer. It’s these times when I have to work through it, get that water weight back off, and start feeling good, again. I’m happy to report that today is the first good day, thanks in part to getting a few of those temporary pounds off.

The hard lesson: while I know what I’ll inevitably gain when I take a few days off from stringent dieting, I think the only thing it really does is please my brain — and confuse it. I have a summer full of camping in front of me; I cannot allow a setback like this to hit me, every time I choose to camp. I’m going to have to change how I do things so I’m not miserable afterward, hoping I can get back where I was and back to losing weight.

This is why this blog exists; to help me work through these sorts of real issues as I fight my way toward my goals. I need to re-read these things, on occasion, and remind myself of the struggles I’ve been through to get to this point — and how I managed to work through them.