Up Again

Up again this week about half a pound, so I'm up to 161.4.

I ought to feel disappointed or something, but I'm really not. Mostly, I think, because I'm not seeing a lot in the mirror that simply losing weight will fix, anymore. Which is not to say that I like everything I see, of course, but it's not as simple as, "Yuck, I'm fat!" any more.

Matt took this picture of me a few weeks ago, and my reaction was actually, "Oh, holy crap, I'm looking bony!" When I look in the mirror before I step into the shower, that reaction is basically confirmed -- my collarbones stand out, and I can see the bones on my chest shifting. Which I've always thought looked slightly gross. My cheeks and jowls are slightly fleshy, left over from being fat, but my neck and chest, which don't have a lot of excess skin, are verging on too thin for my tastes.

The excess skin on my arms and legs is definitely gross -- I've been doing a lot of selective cropping on my summer swim pictures, let me tell you -- but losing more weight will not make my skin tighter. It will, in fact, have the opposite effect. The only things that can make my skin tight again are a) time (lots of it), and b) surgery that I can't afford. I'm going to have to reconcile myself to that, I suspect.

My hips and abdomen are bigger than I'd like -- but that's more to do with my overall body shape than mere fat. I can remember hating that my hips were wider than my chest, and the way my abdomen pooched out, back in high school, when I weighed 135. (And let's be honest: I've carried two babies in that abdomen and delivered them with those hips. My baby-factory region is not going to ever look like it did in high school.)

And balancing all that... Turning sideways in the mirror is a pleasant surprise -- my behind is smaller than it's ever been, I think. I can actually make out muscles in my arms, when the loose skin isn't in the way. Even if it's wider on the bottom than the top, I've got hourglass curves again. (My secret guilty pleasure: when I leave the daycare in the morning, the sun casts my shadow on the sidewalk in front of me, and I love to watch my hips sway when I walk back to the car.) I'm in pretty good shape for a woman who's closing in on 40 (especially considering that when I was 35, I was closing in on 300 pounds).


So a half-pound gain this week doesn't really bother me that much. I need to exercise some discipline again to keep it from going up three weeks in a row, but I'm beginning to wonder if "around 160" is where I need to stay, at least for a while.

And Up Again

That pound I lost last week? It came back. No question as to why, either: grilled fajitas with friends on Saturday, followed by Father's Day ice cream and BLTs, corn on the cob, watermelon, and more ice cream on Sunday. And then Rock Band Night Monday.

I don't think any one of them would have hurt me too bad, but put all together... yeah, I'm back up a bit.

And you know what? It was totally worth it. Summer is the best time for good food. Grilled chicken and peppers and onions, farmer's market tomatoes and corn and watermelon... You damn well better believe I went back for seconds!

So I'm back up over 160, a bit, but I'm not sweating it. I didn't gain it by slipping back into old bad habits, covertly snarfing doughnuts and candy bars in the office kitchen. I gained it eating good food with good friends and having a good time, and I'm confident I'll lose it again. No regrets.

(Is this how normal people feel about food? I could get used to it.)

B'dmp!

A one-pound loss this week nudges me, by the narrowest of narrow margins, out of the 160's and into the 150's -- 159.8, pretty much the lowest it can be (since my scale does its partials in 0.2 increments) and still be less than 160. So while I'm holding my breath against a gain next week bringing me back up (Father's Day this weekend, including a meal with my family, which is not often diet-friendly), I guess I can say I've technically met my goal of being below 160 before the Summer Bash. And if I'm careful, I'll still (again?) be in the 150s when it rolls around.(Though given the amount of food likely to be there, it's entirely possible that I might pop up afterwards, hehe. Maybe I should focus on building a buffer, there.)

My daughter begged me -- begged me -- for cauliflower soup last night. How do you turn down someone begging you for something that tasty and healthy, even knowing that the other two members of the household don't like it? You don't. So I made two kinds of soup for dinner last night. My fridge is stuffed with leftovers, now. Tasty, tasty soup leftovers.

...Or It Didn't Happen!

Poor Matt; I made him go through something like three separate rounds of taking photos of me this morning. The first round, the camera was set up for full sunlight, so the pics turned out too dark; the second set, he only took pics from my waist up (and while I think those look better -- damn my child-birthin' hips! -- they're not so good for comparisons); and finally, the third set, I got some usable shots. Whew, and thanks, hon!

Here's my starting picture, almost exactly two years ago (I'm the one holding the baby):

And here I am now:

And just for fun, here's the whole spread of baby-holding pictures, each taken almost exactly a year apart:

The kid keeps getting bigger, and I keep getting smaller! (Though I have to say, the 40-pound difference between '09 and '10 is significantly less noticeable than the 70-pound difference between '08 and '09 -- more than the extra 30 pounds should make, really. Maybe it's an illusion caused by the angles of the shots and positioning of the kid's leg.)

She Scores!

Whahoo! I'm down 2.2 pounds this week, which is just enough to bump me over the 5th 10% goal that I've been staring at since (dear gods) November. 160.8 puts me only barely past the goal weight of 161, with no guarantee that I won't bounce right back up over it next week, but there we have it!

I'll have to get Matt to take a comparison photo in the next day or so so I can post that. (He took a picture of me just this weekend, actually, but I was in a swimsuit, and when I saw it, well... I was braced for the fact that my boobs were hanging down to my waist -- seriously, I need a bathing suit with an underwire or something -- but I hadn't realized how horrible my legs look; there's so much loose skin there that they look saggy and wrinkly all down my thighs. Ug. Maybe I should start saving up for cosmetic surgery to get some of this excess skin removed, as I suspect I'm too old to expect much elasticity from my skin.

Anyway, I'll get Matt to take a picture of me wearing pants in the next day or so and post it.

In theory, another 10% of my weight lost would take me down to 145, slipping me just under the BMI "normal" gate. But given how much my weight loss has slowed in the last few months, I'm wondering if 145 might be a little too ambitious (cosmetic surgery notwithstanding -- I bet I've got at least 10-15 pounds of excess skin hanging on me, here). And quite honestly, if I do have 15 pounds of excess skin hanging on me, then the amount of fat in my body is already pretty close to "normal". So I've set my next goal to 150. We'll see how long it takes me to get there, and how much effort it is to stay in that range before I decide whether to go further.

Oops.

I didn't do too badly on the writing retreat, but then I came home and promptly went out to dinner two nights in a row. Once at La Tolteca, where I overindulged in chips, and once to the County Grill, where I ate half a barbecued chicken (well, most of it) and cornbread muffins and warm potato salad...

So, er, yeah, I kind of undid last week's loss. I was at 163 this morning, up 1.4 pounds. I'm hoping some of that is water weight, from all the extra salt. But still, bad bad bad! Back on the wagon for me!

(But man, oh, man, the barbecue and the cornbread and the potato salad were worth it.)