I tried on my goal jeans and shirt, this morning, and was pleased. In fact, I was shocked! The jeans aren’t far from fitting, and I truly figured that after seeing progress last week, it would be optimistic to expect the same, this week. The shirt fits better, as well.  Historically, my weight loss tends to come in waves, so seeing a better fit is atypical.  I feel like I’m seeing results quicker than I did during my last go-round.

Today, I’m wearing the last pair of jeans that I used for goal.  I hadn’t worn them for a little over a week.  See, I have this fear of calling “goal!” on a pair of pants, and then having a regain and feeling them grow tight, again, so I tend to put them aside and not wear them. I did the same thing with the first goal pants.

Now, part of that is based on previous experience; when I lost a ton of weight years ago, I tracked my weight daily, and one of my trends was that I would routinely gain weight during certain parts of my menstrual cycle, followed by a loss of all the weight I’d gained, plus a few more pounds. During those years (yes, years!), my weight loss chart looked like a roller coaster; a slope upward, followed by a descent, and then back up. Just a note, though — in contrast to most women, who become bloated during a menstrual cycle and lose the water weight afterward, I actually bloated before the cycle and lost the water weight during.  Those were when my lowest weights occurred.

So, getting to a point where I can call “goal” on a pair of pants implies that I’m at the bottom of the descent, and previous experience dictates a gain over the days to follow, so yes, I often experienced newly fitting clothes that felt tighter for a couple of weeks.

However, it’s also a trick of the mind.  I haven’t seen that roller coaster effect this time around, but then, I’m peri-menopausal and on hormone replacement therapy.  I’m also not tracking weights like I was, but I can still tell by how clothes fit.  My former roller coaster often meant a water weight gain of 10-15 pounds, and when you’re carrying over a gallon of extra water, it’s not just a matter of clothes not fitting; it’s painful.

Still. I set my last goal jeans aside and was hesitant to wear them, as if I somehow imagined them fitting, and that if I tried them on, I’d see my efforts reversed. Like I’m not legitimately losing weight.  There’s part of my brain that continually calls me a liar. It whispers to me that what I’m doing isn’t working, and that unless I’m willing to do something more drastic, I will fail — again.

I’m insecure when it comes to believing in my own weight loss.  I think that’s probably a lot of the reason why I’ve been so scale-dependent in the past; I could see immediate feedback and adjust.  While that’s a smart thing to do overall, my reaction to seeing the scale report no loss, or a gain, was to adjust by doing something drastic, almost like a self-punishment for not being successful, instead of looking at things objectively and seeing where I could improve.

I need my brain to behave.  I need to tackle those feelings of not good enough and also be willing to try different things. The requirements of my body, today, are not the same as what they will be a year from now — even if I fail. What works will change, and I have to adapt. I have to throw out the old thoughts and retrain how I think.

Not an easy task, at 50, because many of these issues are imprinted on my brain, but as I realize each of these pitfalls, I can work on them.