Just another reminder of how fickle our bodies can be, and that basing our self esteem or perception of losses on the scale, alone, is missing a huge part of the equation.

I was 195 on Monday, 194 on Tuesday, and today I'm 191.4.

That's a massive drop.

It's also more in line with how my calories have been for the past two weeks.

But it didn't show up on the scale until today.

Why, you ask?

Well, the last day of my period was Tuesday. My hormones shifted and regulated again, and I shed a significant amount of water I had been retaining. Water, that has been masking real losses of fat for the past week. If I had been going solely on the scale I'd have been frustrated, with two weeks of very little apparent progress. But my clothes were fitting slightly looser (except around my bloated lower abdomen) and my face was looking less puffy, even after the Hot Dog Debaucle of a camping trip.

Women, in particular, generally do NOT lose weight linearly. Our monthly cycles dictate our losses, and while most women will lose 4-8 pounds a month if sticking to a 500 calorie a day deficit, many will NOT lose 1-2 pounds per week. If they are anything like me, they hold steady, lose a ton, bounce up a bit, move back down, and hold steady again, before repeating the cycle in another two to three weeks. If I am faithfully on plan I almost always have big whooshes of weight every three weeks or so, followed by my body bouncing around a pound or so on either side before resetting at that point and then moving further down the scale. Unfortunately this cycle is punctuated by major hormonal cravings and if I give in too excessively it can affect my loss pattern and slow it down, but the basic structure is the same month to month, if I am not pregnant.

I am thrilled for the whoosh, but I am also expecting (and won't be too terribly annoyed by) my weight bouncing up a half pound or so by weigh day, as my body gets used to this new range (191-193) it is in, instead of the old range (194-196). But slowly and surely the scale IS moving, and I am so happy that I may be able to make my tentative goal of 189 by the end of June. We'll see, it's not the end of the world if I don't, so long as I am heading in the right direction. But hormones or not, if I am consistently pushing a calorie deficit I DO lose weight, even if it looks a little crazy day to day the pattern emerges from the seemingly random numbers. This alone is a reason I suggest daily weighing to those who can do it, I would have NEVER made sense of the seemingly crazy weight fluctuations I experience without a consistently, long-ranging log of it.

Hormones. Weight loss. It's a side of the equation I don't think gets talked about enough. And that's a shame, because I get the feeling a lot of yo-yo dieting women would benefit greatly from an understanding that not seeing losses like clockwork after two weeks doesn't mean they're doing something wrong, and that sticking with it vigilantly WILL pay off. After three years of slow but earnest efforts, I can say it is infinitely better to lose slowly and unsteadily than to give up and never try at all. I've failed by conventional dieting standards, and failed off over 65 pounds.

To me, I'd say that 'failure' looks a whole lot more like victory ;)