As I progress in my weight loss, I’ve noticed that my reactions to things beyond my control have evolved. While I find such things frustrating, my reaction tends to be more anger than defeat.

Nope. Not food. Or salt, my favorite food group.

I swore to myself, after dealing with water retention issues, that the next time I went out of town, I wouldn’t see it as an opportunity to misbehave diet-wise. I had such a challenge this week, and it was complicated further because I was dealing with water retention issues before I ever left town. For me, that’s the danger zone.

Faced with the likelihood that water retention would only worsen if I didn’t eat properly, I made good choices. Just travel alone with make me retain, so making sure I kept myself in check otherwise was important. Water retention not only causes pain in my arthritic knees but increases the possibility of a knee lock-up. The last place I want that to happen is out of town; it’s bad enough at home!

There are times when I have to focus on small victories like this. It’s easy to get lost in the big picture and think only of long term when I’ve reached a good success point in weight loss, but dealing with issues like this has served to remind me that each day must be met on its own. If I don’t, I end up convincing myself that a cheat meal, day, or a few days, are in order — pushing aside the consequences. While I do believe in taking the occasional cheat meal (which is still well planned; “cheat” is really a misnomer, in this regard), it has to be done with the idea in mind that there are always consequences.

While I’m back home now and still dealing with water retention, I’m thankful that I didn’t amplify that by making easy choices that would have made things worse. Yes, I get angry when my body doesn’t react the way I think it should; there are many times my body does things that defy logic, and its propensity to hang onto every last drop of water is one of those things.

Given the choice, though, I’d rather feel angry than defeated. Defeat just makes the situation worse. Anger forces me to look at methods to overcome whatever issue I’m facing at the moment, especially when I’m very close to a goal I’ve been pushing to achieve. Time to push a little harder!