A whole new wardrobe

I'm not sure if I wrote about this before, but recently my husband unearthed some of my totes filled with my old, "thin" clothes (by thin I mean size 16-18). And, it was like Christmas! Beloved items that I had not seen for ages, suddenly pulled out of Rubbermaid bins and given new life-- Astoundingly, I fit in to most of them! I was shocked. See, back when I got to my lowest weight "ever" when I did Weight Watchers, I weighed in at 198 or so. I'd lost 90 lbs or something like that. Anyhoo, I went a little lot crazy as I had never been able to shop in a regular store before. So I bought, and bought, and bought.. kinda like I used to eat... so finding the two totes crammed full of my clothes was fantastic.. and then having many of them fit once again, supreme. I didn't think they would fit as well because my "thin" days were before I had my boys. And everyone knows, things change when you grow babies, especially when they weigh 9 lbs 15 oz and 11 lbs 7 oz respectively. Yeah. So to pull up pair after pair of pants and have them fasten, no bed-laying-down-sucking-in needed, was a HUGE NSV. 

Wearing slightly tight pants is good for me. I guess what I mean is not loose and bulky but properly fitting, maybe a tiny bit snug. It reminds me to watch what I eat, otherwise I feel uncomfortable. And I hate that. Because I still don't want to watch the amount I eat or feel uncomfortable. Ah, nothing like a year of still trying to learn the basics. 

In other exciting news, the scale has finally crept down a little bit. Part of this is attributable to my band feeling a bit tight. I'm not sure why, as I have not had a fill for months. I think part of it may be my new snugger bra (I had been wearing a 44, now down to a snug-but-comfortable 38); some of it may be that it's gotten chilly here. For some reason, my band seems to tighten in the cold weather. I am ok with that because I need to be thinking about what I'm putting in my mouth. Lately I've been trying to remind myself to "take a bariatric bite" as in, stop cramming ginormous amounts of food down your gullet or you'll get stuck. And it's been working for the most part. Back to the creeping scale-- down to 206.4. I think that means that according to my baratric center's highest weight of me (307, I think), they will weigh me as having lost 100 lbs. I count it as 104 as my real highest weight was 311. 

Another NSV, different but related, was receiving PJs for Xmas in size XL and having them fit comfortably. I can't believe I'm back in the "normal" human size. In thinking about my goal of 175, I've made mini-goals for the next year. By the end of November next year (my 2 year bandiversary) I would like to be at goal; to do so I will need to loose about 3 lbs a month. I can do that. I can. So the itty bitty goal is do-able. I'll need to maintain some exercise, perhaps ramp it up a bit. We'll see. I can do it, though. 

So that is about all that I've got today. Happy holidays to you & yours!

Chex Mix, Cake, Cake Pop Balls, Oh My!

Can you tell I've been eating not-so-great lately? My therapist says to work on avoiding "catastrophizing" language ... what I really wanted to write was "terribly" instead of not-so-great. We have had two big parties at our home in the past two weeks, and Christmas is upon us, and I went grocery shopping when hungry, and I'm dealing with a stressful case at work. So my food choices have not been great. This is a plateau, friends. A irritating, no-good, could-be-making-progress-but-I'm-not, plateau. I'm in the 207-210 range. And I know that's really good for me. More than 100 pounds lost. I'm glad for that. And my husband found bins of my old clothes this week and I victoriously tried them on. And most fit! But, guess what? I'm disappointed. Because I seem to be stuck and I don't want to be. Aside from the parties, I'm not doing what I need to do. I've eaten bread, and Halloween candy, and other crap, and fast food, and you name it. No significant progress. And I think a lot of it is mental block. I need to go to bed earlier. It would be helpful for my weight loss efforts if I got more rest. Oh, that's right, I'm also in counseling and working on improving my marriage. And, as it turns out, I'm not sure I like some of the people I am closest to. Yeah. Good times. Therapy is a challenge. A good one. But it is disappointing to see that while I have worked really hard to get a life that I like, in terms of a job and such, some of the other things may have slipped by the wayside a bit. Like having friends who you really have a lot in common with, who you don't have to fix, who you can gab about anything with and don't have to struggle to come up with safe topics to talk about. I know not where the days will lead me in the future, but it was kind of a stunner to realize that I'm challenged about some of this stuff that I'm facing. And it was there all along. Now that I see it, I SEE it. Paradigm shifting.

And, speaking of needing more rest, off to bed. It would be helpful for my weight loss efforts for me to blog on a regular basis, along with tracking my foods accurately and completely. Just a personal FYI, ya know.