We talked last week about body weight fluctuations and how they can be discouraging. We were looking more at a day to day or week to week basis, but let's talk about fluctuations over a larger period of time.

So many people I've worked with on nutrition have had major body weight fluctuations from year to year. Perhaps they have one year that they're able to really exercise and eat well and then the next year they have a lot of personal life things that derail them for a period of time. While these fluctuations are absolutely going to happen, we need to remember to pull ourselves back on track before things get out of control. For example, if your body weight is slowly trending up, you need to be realistic enough with yourself to say, "Hey I'm about five pounds heavier than I would like to be, I need to get myself back on track right now." It is going to be much easier for you to recover from a five pound gain, rather than if you ignore the weight gain for months or years. Because then, you end up back in the same place you may have been at the beginning of this program and you have to do things all over again.

Today, consider long-term fluctuations that you've experienced in the past and mentally prepare yourself for some fluctuations in the future. Figure out what motivates you and what you will do to get yourself back on track should the fluctuation start to get out of control.