Feeling Good

I need to write this blog tonight, while I'm feeling good about myself, and not tomorrow morning, after I'm standing on the scale and I let those numbers judge how well I did. I borrowed an idea from C over on http://yepanotherweightlossblog.blogspot.com/ to keep my before and after pictures up there (hope you don't mind!). Sometimes, I do get too hung up on the numbers. Sometimes I'm disappointed when I only see that I lost a half pound or a pound. But when I look at that picture from a year ago and then compare it to that picture from last week... wow.

While I was walking to my office today, I realized something. First, that walking up the hill from my car to my office was a lot easier than it was a year ago when I used to huff and puff my way up there. Second, that the clothes I'm wearing are ridiculously big. I wore a shirt today from Lane Bryant that was an 18/20. It was one of those cute Western cut shirts with snaps instead of buttons, and I couldn't wear it last year because it was too tight to button. Well, this year, I could put another me in there with me. And third....

Remember last week when I went to San Francisco? Well, I pack like a girl. I am a girl, so it makes sense! I remember lifting my suitcase off of the little suitcase stand in my hotel and thinking that there was no way that was going to be under 50 pounds. When I finally got to the airport and I put it on the scale, it told me that it was 43.5 pounds. Huh. I was amazed. It felt so heavy. And, on that same trip, a friend asked me if I minded telling him how much weight I had lost. When I told him close to 40 pounds (I round since my starting point is iffy), he looked amazed and congratulated me by saying "that is a lot of weight." You know what? It's finally sinking into my head that, yeah, what I've lost is significant. It's about five pounds less than what was in my heavy suitcase. It's enough weight that my pants are now falling off of me and my button down shirts look ridiculously big. It's enough weight for me to look in the mirror and say, wow, my waist and my hips look in proportion to each other, rather than me toting around a super huge booty.

It's enough weight for me to start feeling small. And even though I'm about 60 pounds away from my goal, that means something. I haven't felt small in a long long while. It makes me wonder what it will feel like to be another 60 pounds lighter.

But best of all, it makes me smile.