Small Measures*

Today was my weigh-in day, measure myself day and all that jazz. I was down 2.6 pounds but am still .5 pounds away from my pre-Christmas mini-goal. Yeah for the loss but frustrating that I am still trying to cross this one tiny little hurdle. Okay so it is a huge hurdle. But I did do the coolest thing today when I was measuring myself. Before I measured to get my up-to-date numbers, I held the tape measure out to where my thighs and belly used to be. Wow. What a shocker! It was crazy to see just how much my body has changed since I started this journey. I guess I hadn’t really given much thought to the numbers I’ve been keeping track of for the past few months. They were this nebulous concept that really hadn’t registered in my brain as to their purpose. Until I stretched the tape measure three inches out from my now much skinnier thigh to where it used to expand to and WOW. WOW, wow, WOW! This shrinkage is bringing on a whole new issue of clothing. Things don’t fit right – yeah I can still wear them, but they fit funny. I’m in that land of limbo between sizes right now. Time to clean out my closets again methinks.......

You know, the funny thing is I still feel big. Anybody else ever felt that way?

Yes, I know am physically much smaller than I was, but I can’t help but still feel like this lumbering, lumpy, lardy girl (tee hee yeah for alliteration!). I just can’t seem to help this. I’ve even caught myself looking at my body in the mirror at spin class assessing what still needs to be fixed. Yes, I am aware that this is a horrible mentality. The American juggernaut of body perfection seems to be able to crack even the toughest and strongest minded nuts. I find myself having to remind myself that this isn’t about being thin, it’s about being healthy. And trust me, I'm all about this being about health. Heck, I've been going to the gym for almost a year now and I think I would die if they revoked my membership for some reason! I'm in this for the long haul folks.

Over vacation I watched a show on the BBC America, called Super-Skinny Me: The Race to Size Zero, about two journalists struggling to get to a size zero. Wow (I seem to like that word today!)! This documentary showed just how quickly two sane, perfectly healthy women spiraled into total obsession with weight loss and body image. This sick quest to be so thin damaged their lives, strained relationships and almost destroyed one of the women. I suppose when you make your life entirely about your weight, it can become a very dangerous obsession. I’m glad that I have people in my life who keep me balanced and yell at me when I start to slip into a pattern of negative thinking and self-image. But what if I didn’t have those people keeping me real?

I'm not going to think about that tonight.

In other news, my belly is full. I'm loving the new WW points kick roomy and I are on. Tonight we had the yummiest 5 point Chicken and Biscuits. Yum yum yum. I'll have to create a recipe for it and stick it up here. It's going in the comfort food file with the previously blogged about Divine Hashbrown Casserole. The thing I like best about WW is that I can eat whatever I want! No they didn't pay me to say that. I said it of my own free will. Of course I still have to be accountable for eating it, but I can eat what I want. When I did Jenny Craig, I lost like crazy. But I never learned how to eat well and take care of myself. I never made a commitment to being healthy nor did I learn to love exercise. Things have really changed for me since then. I've learned what happens when you don't have a good foundation for your health -- you gain the weight you lost back and then some. In this past year, I've also learned that you can change -- no plastic surgery required. You just have to want to do it.

Change. It is both our kindest friend and most evil enemy. It invigorates, enthralls, drives and delights us while making us absolutely mad all at the same time.

But at the end of the day, lasting change, lifelong change, uncomfortable sometimes change is the only way I'm ever going to get myself out of this hole I've dug. And you know what? I kind of like watching myself climb out...I've got a cute (yet still relatively large) ass! And it is so much easier of me to be proud of my accomplishments this time around because I've had to work so hard to get where I am.

Babble, babble, babble. I don't think I can even focus on the words anymore. Hmmmm. Could that be a sign I need to go to sleep? Quite possibly yes.

Thanks for the patience with my verbal seepage tonight folks. Not sure where half of this came from! Too little sleep, not enough brain cells perhaps.

Until next time,

FGS

*Today's blog was brought to you by: change, we all need it; insomnia, it is never your friend and you shouldn't blog while sleepy; love, everyone should get some and cream puffs, because who doesn't dream of those at night. Oh and sense -- as in clearly I am making none at this point!