I found my waist today. And it’s not where I thought it was…So, I am not faithful in measuring my body parts. Frankly, it’s depressing. And when I did measure them in the beginning, I only measured one part – my waist. I was determined to one day have my pants fall down while I was walking. I know! I’m weird. Anyway, the books and articles all say that when you measure your waist, you measure the “smallest” part which is usually about 2 inches or so above your belly button. Well, for me, my “smallest” part was the area around my belly button. I figured, hey…I’ve been pregnant, let things go after birthing the baby, my belly button just is a little further south than it used to be. This must be my waist.This morning after my shower I was shocked to discover that my “smallest” part was no longer the circumference around my belly button area. I was alarmed to see that where once sat a set of four spare tires, I had what is appearing to be an hour glass shape. *Gasp* THAT’S my waist? Eek! Well, yeah…I’m NOT publishing any numbers…my spare tires are shifting (I think two are now around my hips and part of another is taking refuge in my triceps). I am seeing progress and those pants that fall down? Nearly there folks… I have at least one pair that are super close to causing me a fit of public embarrassment if I continue to wear them to the mall for my morning walks. 
If you heard something strange this morning, that was just me stepping on the scale and shouting for joy. 
Now, ordinarily the number staring back at me wouldn’t be something to shout for joy about. In fact, after today, it’s now my most hated number. HA HA…but at this moment, it’s time to celebrate as today I officially hit 25lbs on the weight loss scale. I was hoping that it’d be this week and it was! Yay!Another thing that is new for me is that clothes are starting to fit weirdly on me. I spent a frustrating morning trying to get ready for church finding that most of the tops that I was putting on were now too big. This is great news on many levels but on others I got me started on facing my biggest fear – having Ethopian boobs by the time this is over with. Egads..the lot of that just deflates me any way but knowing that my built in life preservers may shrink to raisins is just not what I was banking for. As I keep on with this diet of mine, I keep picturing myself as that weird water balloon thing that they sell in novelty stores…you can squeeze it and it just flies from your hands….well, with me I feel like I am being squeezed from my ears and my ankles and all that STUFF that made me ME, is all gathering at my waist line. It’s difficult to put into words but the essence is that it feels like the weight is shifting and it’s all going to the middle. Push me over and I think I’d actually roll in a straight line now. Ugh. Ok….but seriously, 25 pounds is a good milestone. It’s proves that I can do this. It’s taken 2 months and I think that isn’t too shabby. And it’s got me thinking….if I can lose the first 25 in 2 months, can I lose the next in another two? That means that by the latter part of May I could be staring down a 50 pound weight loss and wouldn’t THAT be something? It would!So I bemoaned the fact that my clothes are fitting weird to my Dad. And he says, “Let’s go buy you some new clothes!” And I’m thinking HECK NO!!! I may look a little weird for the next few months because I may have to rig my clothes to some safety pins and twine but I am NOT buying new clothes until I can get rid of all the fat ones first.Anyway…let today just go on record. 25 pounds, people!
So, it’s been a while since I had written anything about my weight loss endeavor. In some ways it’s been a long 2 months because the weight doesn’t come off as fast as one would like. But it really does take a while to burn off this chubbiness! But the good thing is that I am seeing results so it is keeping me motivated to keep on going. I marvel at how I may look in another 6 months. The idea that I could end up in jeans smaller than I have ever worn as an adult is mind boggling. I find myself checking out the clothes at the mall in the skinny people stores and think that I may actually get to shop in one of them some day. That’s kinda cool. I am thinking that will be my reward should I ever fit into skinny jeans. I may actually buy them – full price, mind you – at a store that caters to skinny people. Where am I in this journey of mine? Well, I haven’t even made it to the half way mark but I can see it. It’s out there on the horizon. My ticker on the side of this site doesn’t reflect it accurately because it’s been acting up, but I am now down 23 pounds with the big 25 staring me right in the face. The way it’s been going this past week, if I am fortunate to see it, I could be announcing the 25lb weight loss in a matter of days. One thing I will say however is that I am now below my pre-pregnancy weight which is pretty exciting. It’s not that much lower but enough to put a smile on my face when I have to sit in front of yet another salad at lunch time. Actually, the salads aren’t that bad. I don’t mind them so much, especially the ones with berries and chicken in them. I am thankful that I can sit down at dinner and eat semi-normally otherwise I don’t see this new way of eating sticking around. What I am saying is that I don’t feel “deprived”. Yeah there are times like last night when I really wanted a sweet treat but I just couldn’t figure out what to have. I flitted back and forth from a Creamie to a banana to a cookie and finally decided that it was just time to go to bed and forget about the treat. I wasn’t going to DIE if I didn’t have it. I had pretty much reached my calorie goal for the day and I didn’t NEED it. Yeah! Seriously! Another WHOA moment for me. Who is this girl?So, how is the exercise going? It would be fantastic if my legs and feet would cooperate. My last saga were infuriating leg cramps and a quest to find the perfect shoe. I ended up getting some Nike running shoes and I ended up walking all over Washington DC 2 weeks ago in them. They held up great. My feet felt great and my legs even better. We were walking at least 5 miles a day and one day clocked 9 miles. So the shoes and my legs/feet were getting a work out! But then a couple days ago I started to get heel pain in my left foot. WHAT THE HECK!? SO annoying. So it’s been a battle the past few days with me telling my 38 year old body that although it’s not 22 any more, it IS 23 pounds lighter and I am doing it a favor by taking the weight off. The least it could do is stop hurting so I can reach my goal. It’s not listening to me though. This morning as soon as my foot hit the floor there was pain. Actually I knew the pain was coming because laying in bed there was a slow throb reminding me that I was about to give my left foot the middle finger. Thankfully though, with a little Naproxen and some stretching and of course, putting in that 2 miles this morning, the heel is irritated but not throbbing. I’ll survive.There you have it. That’s the latest. Dad tells me that he’s seeing a big difference. I see it in the numbers on the scale but not quite with my clothes – well maybe a little in the shirts. But I’m still looking forward to the day that I need to hold on to my belt loops when I walk to keep them from falling to my ankles!
