Are you gonna finish that?

I have lost about 40 pounds now, and am finding myself in that weird head space where I’m “now ya see it, now ya don’t.”

My size 20w slacks are fitting again, and I’ve worn a few blouses and a jacket this week that I outgrew quickly last winter. The beginnings of my impending double chin have disappeared; suddenly I have this nice, slimmer face and neck instead of that saggy, tired-looking countenance.

My waist has re-materialized. Back from fat camp.

I can feel that there’s less ass back there, can see it in the mirror.

Nonetheless, there’s a part of me that just doesn’t comprehend it. I’m SMALLER? Really? How peculiar!

As if all those hours on the treadmill and weight machines, pounding the pavement walking the dogs around town, counting and recounting carbs and calories, reading labels, measuring and portion-sizing, have absolutely no connection to my transforming body.

When I was binge-ing and regaining the same 40 pounds over the winter, I shut down my conscious awareness. If I didn’t face what I was doing, all the food that I pretended I wasn’t eating wouldn’t become fat. If I didn’t look at myself in the mirror, didn’t step on the scale, didn’t total up the calories, it just wouldn’t happen.

Even tho my clothes were becoming tight, unbearably tight, then incapable of fastening altogether. Cue the self-hatred.

Denial, it seems, is a one-way ticket. You can’t come back from there. In that surreality, since I didn’t regain the weight to begin with, I can’t grasp the fact that I’m losing it now. I wouldn’t accept responsibility for eating my way up the scale last winter, so I can’t take the credit for working my way down it.

Sugar Queen, you can check out any time you like - but you can never leave.