My Spark Was Extinguished Tonight

Ok.  This post is going to be full of moaning, groaning, bitching, whining, irritated, frustrated, aggravated kind of stuff.  Just so you know ahead of time.  I need to VENT!!!

I'm telling you my weigh-in early.  Yes, it was supposed to be tmrw morning, and I was going to wait until then in case I dropped another pound.  But after what happened at the gym tonight, I'll go ahead and tell you what it said this morning, and then I'll tell you why I can't be excited over it like I WAS.  I weighed 233.6 lbs this morning for a loss of 6 lbs.  Big whoop.

Remember how I told you on Monday night that the trainer TRIPLE CHECKED how many calories I SHOULD be eating, and he told me 2306??  Well tonight when I got to the gym he proudly told me that he was damn close to the right number.  The gym's corporate sports nutritionist was there tonight, he showed him my stats, and the nutritionist said I should be eating 2200.  I told Chris (our trainer) that I still think he's full of crap, so he told me to talk to the nutritionist after my workout, and I did.  What a bummer that turned out to be.

Now, I have to hear something a couple of times before it all sticks in my brain, so I won't be able to explain it to you exactly the way he did, but I'll give you the jist of it all.  He said something about our Basal Metabolic Rate, meaning when you're at rest, laying on the couch doing nothing, is between 1800-1900.  He said you have to eat MORE than that to burn fat, so I need to be eating 2200 cals a day.  If I eat LESS than that, I'm actually harming my body, because then I'm losing muscle. 

I tried to complain, telling him that I ate right around 1500 cals/day this week and worked out 6 days this week, and when I weighed this morning I'd lost 6 lbs!!!  So my way HAS to work!!  He said he knows I'm excited,  but unfortunately, what I actually did is I probably lost 3 lbs of fat, and 3 lbs of muscle.  He said it makes no sense to be in the gym busting my ass 6 days a week to gain lean muscle (in order to help burn fat, and lose inches), only to eat too few calories and lose muscle at the same time, and faster than I'm gaining it with the weights. 

My bubble was burst, my balloon was deflated, all the wind was sucked out of my sails, and my heart sank to the floor.  I asked him if I did it his way, eating 2200 cals/day, how much fat would I lose in a week.  He said expect to lose 1 lb.  Did you catch that??  One stinking lb. a week.  When you do your quick math, realize that I want to lose at least another 60 lbs, figure out there's 52 weeks in a year....then you realize that it will take me OVER a year to lose the rest of this weight.  I pointed this out to him.

That's when I got the speech that I HATE with a passion.  "What the scale says doesn't matter."  Oh really?  Well tell that to society....tell that to my psyche....tell that to every effing bastard that's ever made fun of me for weighing what?? A deuce....deuce and a half??  I know that SOME people have reached that glorious place in life and in their minds full of rainbows and fluffy clouds and butterflies where the scale doesn't matter, and for them, I'm glad life's all shits and giggles.  But let me tell you ....for SOME of us....it DOES matter.  It always will. 

I can appreciate that I will lose inches faster than I will lose the fat, like he said I would.  I appreciate that I'll be able to fit into smaller clothes.  I got all of that.  I got it.  But I really am not going to give a damn if I can fit into a size 6 jeans and the effing scale still says I weigh 200 POUNDS!!!!

I was on the edge of tears, so I thanked him for the information, and bolted out of the gym.  I got in my car, called Dwayne, and bawled my eyes out.  So deflated.  In an effort to calm me down, Dwayne suggested that I bump it up a little to 1800 cals and see what happens over the next couple of weeks.  And to be fair to the nutritionist, he did say not to go straight from 1500 to 2200 in a week.  He said to go to 1800 next week and stay there for a couple of weeks.  Then do 2000 for a couple of weeks.  Then hold it at 2200.  But he wants me to get all the way up to 2200, and I just don't know if I can do it. 

Now that I know better, I realize just how blissful my ignorance was.  But we all know that once you know better, you're supposed to do better.  So now if I stick to 1500 and have another good loss, I wont' be able to feel good about it, because now I know it's not all fat that I'm losing.  Then I catch myself wondering how much muscle can I afford to lose?  What does it mean to lose muscle?  Is it really going to hurt me?  How much damage would I actually be doing to myself and will I be able to tell?  How will it manifest itself?  Crazy shit.

I'm just upset because it takes so much effort and so much focus for me to do every thing right every day.  There's a lot of days that I'm SUPER sore, and I just don't feel like going to the gym the next day.  But damn it, I did it anyway.  I was back on track.  I had the blinders on.  I finally, after 3 long, miserable months, had my fire back.  And now this.  Just so upset.

Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow with a new attitude and will be able to embrace all of this new info with open arms and a happy, willing heart.  LOL...yeah, right.  Grrrrrr.

And please....just in case any of my dear friends here in Blogland feel compelled to leave me a comment about forgetting what the scale says.  Please.....just.....don't.  Please.  Thank you for understanding.  I know I've got the wrong attitude about the scale, but still.....just don't.  Thank you.  :)

Quote For the Day:

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."  -Martin Luther King, Jr.