Playing to Lose

Weekly weigh-in: 211.3
Loss: +.3
Total loss: -80.7
Emotion: A Tad Defensive

There’s a phenomenon in most sports where a team gets ahead by a sizeable margin and changes its game plan. Instead of playing to win, the team starts playing with a different goal in mind: not to lose.

Often, that strategy backfires. The squad that was trying to hold the lead finds itself playing cautious, tentative, hesitant. It’s hard to maintain momentum when you’re back on your heels.

And when that happens, a seemingly sure win sometimes slips from their grasp.

The team snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

That analogy has been weighing on my mind this week, about how it pertains to the shift from goal-oriented weight loss into maintenance (or near maintenance). Instead of a single-minded focus on what you need to do, you try to do just enough to get the job done. And too often, “just enough” isn’t quite enough…

Last week, in an effort to combat a huge post-vacation gain, I went on offense and scored my biggest loss of the year.

This week, as I shifted the game plan back to a more defensive mindset, and the scale bumped up a tad.

There’s an old sports saying, “The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle.” With a minor tweak, it works for weight loss, too…

The more right choices you make during the week, the less you need to worry on the scale.

Time to get my head in the game…