Plateau.

I knew it would happen.

I tried to will it away.

But it was inevitable.

The roadblock in almost every weight loss story.

The damn plateau.

Defined as a verb, plateau means to "reach a state of little or no change after a time of activity or progress." For the past three weeks, I've managed to scarcely squeeze out another pound of weight loss. While that puts me at a total of 26 lbs, which is remarkable in and of itself - I've never lost that much weight - I'm still a tad really frustrated. Really. Frustrated.

Oh how I've Googled "plateau," and "breaking a plateau." I know all the answers by heart. And I'm trying pretty much every single one. My new plan of attack: switch up the workouts. I've been doing a combination of P90X, using the elliptical and running. Me thinks me body has grown accustomed to said routines, so I started spinning at a local spin outfit, and a generous coworker is going to lend me some Insanity DVDs. I'm also going to make sure I'm super vigilant about every single morsel of food that makes its way onto my palate. If you're thinking I'm becoming obsessed, shelve your worries. Concerned parties need not check in here. Here's the deal. Historically, at this point in my weight loss, I would have either stopped and relaxed a bit - thus putting back on the weight (which has been the ugly orbit I've ridden my entire conscious-of-body-life), or just completely thrown in the towel out of frustration and shoved a Big Mag down my gullet.

I'm fiercely determined not to indulge in either one of those practices. I am exhaustively aware of these innate patterns and am going to do something about it this time - the last time. Yo-yo dieting - be gone! This is now, finally, a life commitment. I'm not losing weight for a wedding, or a birthday, or a vacation. I'm losing weight for ME, the future of my someday family, and for my lifelong health.  This "time" is different. A light switched on months ago after taking the Healthy Eating Challenge through Whole Foods Market.

Enlightened I have been.

All that having been said, I'm still gritting my teeth when I get on the scale and see it has only moved 0.2 lbs. It takes everything I have to edit and revise the internal dialogue from What the hell! - I quit, to Awesome job! Albeit slow, the scale continues to move; look how strong you've become and how fabulous you look. It took you five years to gain this weight, it won't come off overnight. Keep working hard.


I refuse to undo all my hard work by shoving crap into my belly just because I'm mad. Eating out of frustration/stress is no longer acceptable. I continue to remind myself of this on a daily basis.

I continue.