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.