Barby - Taking a week off from meetings

This week was really stressful for me. I had a major project due for school and I had finals and a paper due also. I found this class really hard to keep up with so it consumed a lot of my time and left very little for myself. I have been trying to stay active and cope as best I could and have been doing ok. I am in a challenge to lose 10 lbs by Thanksgiving and I want my scale to show I have left the 230's. I don't care if it's 229.9, that's still good. As of friday morning my home scale said I had about 4lbs to go and I was so disappointed. If my scale was correct that meant I had not lost any weight this week. I tracked every day, I didn't skip a meal or go over points and even had weekly points left. I was so proud of myself for staying on program while going through such a hard time in class. And 30 seconds undid all of my positive mindset. I had finals to take on Saturday and I didn't want my official weigh in to put me in a bad place mentally. I decided to see what my home scale said in the morning. I got up Saturday and weighed myself. Still no change. I took a deep breath and made a decision. I wasn't going to the meeting. I knew that if I went and the scale was showing a gain or even maintaining, it would crush me. I had worked to hard and know from experience that I would not handle that well. I needed to be positive and focused for my final. I stayed home, completed all my assignments and took my final. By 7pm I was exhausted. I also had no regrets for not weighing in this week. I could put the frustration of a stagnant week and a class from hell behind me and focus on the week ahead with no pressure from school. Sunday morning I woke up and got on my scale. I could not believe what I saw, my scale shows me within 1 lb of my Thanksgiving goal! The odds are pretty good that I will make it and finally, all the hard work of the week before was showing up. I realized that while I need the meetings to help me succeed at weight loss, sometimes I just need a week off. Not from tracking or from doing the right thing, but from the pressure of the scale. It doesn't mean I don't believe in the program or that I am giving up, just that every once in awhile I need to step back from what I am doing to appreciate how far I have come.