So this morning's weigh-in showed the scale at 187.6. I am delighted; it's been slow and frustrating for the last couple of months, although when I look back at my stats, I definitely have been losing fairly steadily.
Anyway, this number means two things:
I am now only 3.3 pounds overweight, which is mind-boggling, and since I think BMI isn't a perfect guide or ultimate authority, I don't think I'm wrong in how "normal" I've been feeling for a while, because 3.3 pounds, after losing so much? Is nothing. It'll come off eventually, as long as I stick to plan. I'm done with berating myself every time I decide the scale isn't moving fast enough. I journal my food, I exercise, I stick to my calorie budget. I know I'm working at it, and I know that there's a pattern to my weight loss, and I've been at this long enough that maybe it's time to just accept that, carry on with what I'm doing -- it's worked so far, hasn't it? -- and let the pounds come off as they will. Because I know they will, and this isn't a race.
More significantly, it means that I have now lost 188 pounds. I started at 375.6. I have officially lost just over half of my starting weight. On the one hand, I am horrified at just how bad I let things get. I know daily, or near-daily, weighing doesn't work for a lot of people, but for me, I know that, but with few exceptions, I am going to be getting on the scale every morning I'm able for the rest of my life, because I am never letting that kind of number sneak up on me again. I understand my fluctuations, I have my journal, and I should be able to tell when the problem is me, and when the problem is just a normal fluctuation.
I knew I was hugely fat. I knew I was morbidly obese. I knew all that, but until I finally sucked it up, bought a scale, and got on it, I didn't REALLY know. And of all the things of which I am most proud, my response to that initial, horrible number is first on the list. I looked at it, freaked out, and then said to myself, It will be lower tomorrow. I will make that happen. I will NEVER see this number again. And then I did. And I kept going. And I didn't quit.
So here I sit, half the size I used to be. When I finally broke out of the 190s, a switch flipped in my brain, because for some reason, 189 sounded so much better to me than 190, which is ridiculous, because it's just one pound. Objectively, I knew perfectly well that 189 wasn't really any different, physically, than 190. But it felt so much better. And 187.6 feels better still. I can conceptualize it; I can feel it, I can look at that number, and then myself in the mirror, and say, yeah. That sounds about right. I can believe that's what I weigh. I'm not done, but yes, that's my body, that's what it weighs today, and I can see it. I wouldn't be embarrassed to say that's what I weigh. I wouldn't feel the need to lie on my driver's license.
I've often joked, once I got above, say, the 120 lbs lost point, that I've lost an entire person's worth of weight. This morning, I can say I've lost an entire person's worth of weight, and that entire person is ME.
Thank you all so much. I didn't join 3FC until I was well into my weight-loss project -- I think I'd lost about 130 or 140 pounds -- but this place, and you people have become invaluable to me. Thank you all so much for sharing your own journeys, your own struggles, and your own victories. I don't feel like I'm alone. My world is bigger and richer and brighter and better for having you all in it.
