Congratulations to you!
Just in the past couple of days I've also begun to have the same feeling.
And it's not as if diets haven't worked for me before. Twice in my life I managed to get down from about a size 24 to a size 14, and both times were enormous, anxiety-filled struggles that threw me into a tantrum if I wasn't losing as insanely quick as I felt I should be.
This time has been different. It had to be! Since I'd let myself go somewhere beyond a size 28 (I wouldn't know exactly where I ended up, as nothing from the plus-size stores would fit me aside from stretch pants) I knew I had to take a long-term approach to my health if I ever wanted to reach a normal weight. And it's been difficult for me to fathom because I've been overweight since I hit puberty; I was already in a size 24 at the age of 14! While I'd always longed to be thin, I spent most of life feeling that it was an impossible ideal to obtain because the only methods that seemed to work for me were either prescribed diet pills or starving myself, neither or which are sustainable or even remotely healthy.
I made the realization one day that I was not only shortening my life, but that I didn't have much of a life to live in a body so limiting. I decided that things needed to change. I've spent years gradually changing my exercise habits. I went from being so sedentary that I'd be out of breath trying to make it to the next room (and I mean quite literally, my lungs could no longer handle lugging my body around and I wound up in the hospital a few times over it), to being able to walk for miles at a time and even throw a little jogging in. It's also taken years to change my relationship with food, including learning not only what is healthy to eat, but to be satisfied with what portions should
really look like!
The losing process has felt especially slow to me, and I guess it has been. It's literally taken me years to reach the point I'm at, and given that I didn't notice any difference in my body when I lost the first 40 pounds (I seriously couldn't tell any difference in my clothes), my former "all or nothing" mentality had to be thrown out the window. I just kept plugging away, happy I wasn't gaining and hoping to eventually get under a size 24.
But the realization we speak of? It's finally hitting me. Just in the past few months I finally got below a 24 again. And just a few days ago, I fit into a 16. That means I'm only one size away from my lowest ever! It's finally happening, and I'm still in control! No freaking out, no starving, no diet pills, I'm doing it the right way this time. And it feels wonderful! No fighting tooth and nail to lose another pound, instead I just keep doing this the right way and reap the rewards.
Life is better this way. I'm not worn out all the time, and my world no longer revolves around food (diet or not). And I've finally hit the point where I'm getting all sorts of noticeable changes! Now i just worry about becoming a little too vain for my own good.
But congratulations once again! I've always loved your avatar (I'm a huge TLM fan).