Mind games

When I started to lose weight 4 years ago, I quickly learned my body's weight loss patterns. I might not have liked them, but I understood them. They were the same as they were with my other major weight loss a decade before. I just noticed the trend more precisely as I weighed daily versus weekly.

With weekly weight losses, I noticed two weeks of no loss, two weeks of big losses. It was so very, very consistent and matched my ovulation/menstruation cycle. The two weeks building towards ovulation - no weight loss. The two weeks following ovulation - big weight loss. Of course, I was "losing" the entire time, but was holding onto water weight until after ovulation passed.

Four years ago I learned through daily weigh ins that yes indeed this is my pattern. I got it down to a science. I would stay the same or gain a wee bit during menstruation, lose a wee bit for a couple days following that and then nothing... I would just hold steady no matter what I did. Then, a day or two before ovulation and holding on for 3-4 days, I would have a spike up in weight as my body ovulated and, I guess, waited to see if a pregnancy had resulted because of ovulation, and when it hadn't, it released all the water weight steadily until a day or two before my period. The cycle would repeat over and over again. My weight loss chart looked somewhat like a set of stairs going down. If I didn't have other little fluctuations because of eating out, or a holiday or vacation, it would have 100% looked like stair steps.

Then, however, the pattern stopped/changed. My menstrual cycle started to differ. Some months I had anovulatory cycles. I would get a period, but no ovulation, which means, no predictable pattern. And as I venture towards menopause, the other signals of fertility slowly disappeared. Basically, now, I have no idea and can only make predictions and assumptions and it messes with the head a bit.

I have been staring at an uptick on the scale for the last several days. It just sits there. What does it mean? Am I counting calories wrong? Is it pre-ovulation still? I dont' seem to have other signs of impending ovulation. Has ovulation passed and I should see a bit whoosh tomorrow?

I'm not upset. I know I'm doing it all fine, but it does mess a bit with the head to be doing things right and to see the scale go up two pounds and stay up two pounds for no reason. Or, at least, for no reason I can see or think of.

So... I just have to wait it out and see what happens!