plateaus are only pretty in the desert

Once when I was a small child my family and I drive to Utah for a summer vacation.  (Actually a lot of times we drove to Utah for the summer but I am thinking of one time in particular.)  I had a little vinyl puffy journal complete with a tiny lock and kittens on the front.  I used that diary to chronicle our journey.  I wrote in sloppy handwriting with a giant crayon and the words took up three lines instead of just one.  One of the things I wrote about were the plateaus we passed in New Mexico.

I had just learned about plateaus and mesas in school.  A plateau was like a mountain with the point cut off so it was flat on top.  A mesa was a little plateau.  Growing up in southeast Texas, the closest I came to a mountain at home was a big anthill.  I thought that the plateaus were amazing.  They weren't in a chain of plateaus like the Wasatch mountain range of Utah I was used to.

How did they get so flat on the top?  How did they get there in the first place?  Did anybody live on the top?

Now that I am an adult, I do not think plateaus are so cool, especially when I am talking about a plateau on the scale.  It is frustrating and upsetting after a week of dieting.  I know they are to be expected.  I just spent yesterday explaining to my sister that lulls in weight loss happen for any number of reasons.

Maybe you ate a lot of salt yesterday.  Maybe you've been working out a lot and gained some muscle mass.  Maybe an ant crawled into the scale and is having a good laugh messing with the numbers.

When it happens to you though, it is downright depressing.

Weekly: +1 pounds
 Total: 18 pounds