A 46LB Happy Birthday Gift To Me

That's right, I am turning 36 today. (It is now 12:21AM) I had to stop and count from my birth year earlier when asked how old I would be. I really didn't know. Funny it just doesn't seem to matter these days. The 30's seem to run together. A number that means more to me this year is almost 50. 46LB to be exact. I have lost 46 LBS on my journey to a smaller me. Amazing to think about. Especially since I am not anywhere near thin. Still very heavy in fact. 252 LBS on this 36th birthday. What will I be next year? Will I remember it as the year I finally lost the weight? I do feel somewhat different. I am getting excited for my success. At 5, 10 and even 25LBS down I really was not excited yet. I had seen that happen to many times and too easily. This is putting me back at the verge of new frontier though. I am wearing my real wedding ring for the first time in years. I am seeing hands and feet that look familiar to me again. I am almost a size 18 again. I started with clothes in a 24 and had even gotten to the top of that size with some things getting to tight. Now I can actually put on an 18 but it's a little too much like sausage casing still.  I promised myself I would get some new clothes at size 18 and I am almost there! A few things from my mom have helped to tide me over and a good strong belt! LOL.
I have lost my youngest child in weight ( he was my 10% actually) and I am approaching my middle gem. It helps to think about that loss and to see then running around and visualize what I have actually changed. She will not only be my 20% loss at almost 60LBS (she is about 58ish) she will also be the lowest weight I have been since my first pregnancy. Not my pre-pregnancy weight, but with an 80+LB weight gain by the birth of my oldest I have never approached that realm again. I am developing hope that it may just be coming though! I have gone over 2 years without a difficult pregnancy (a number that seems necessary to my ability to succeed) and have certainly made some real progress! 46LBS in 17 weeks. WOW. It even feels good to see it in print, if a bit unreal. Weight Watchers has really helped me to find the ways that I personally have to change to succeed and the dietary changes I have made for my DS allergies have helped to make it easier to stay on track. This means I have not had to think about my weight loos every day and constantly work at it, it just keeps comming off a few LBS a week. Maybe that's why it is both encouraging and unreal.
  I plan to take measurements when I get to 50 LB lost (soon?) but am excited to seem some improvements. I am able to finally see changes in clothes fitting looser, pants not able to stay up, dresses that are just hanging on my and shirts that are getting sloppy. I had a memorial service to dress for earlier this week and it was a real challenge to find anything I could wear A suit I had gotten this winter looked like I was a small kid wearing grandmas clothes, just huge. Other items were just as sloppy or bulky as I have to belt to keep on. I am not shaped to wear some of the clothes I saved from a previous time yet though. I am actually wearing a black knit dress that I haven't worn in 9 years but it is too tight on my stomach to go in public. I would never have purchased it looking like this but it's comfortable and it feels really good to be able to wear it at all. Maybe when I have actually lost my middle child's weight?
My oldest will be my basic end goal I think. She is about 115ish. That would put me at about 180. I will probably re-evaluate then and decide what I really need. I just don't really know. But honestly just to reach onederland is my happiest goal. That and to be able to buy clothes in the regular ladies department! I don't care it it's the largest size, I don't want to have to ever have to buy plus sized or women's clothes again! NEVER!!!!!! That may be my ultimate happy point. Not because I care about the number either, but because of the limited choices, and the poor fit. I am a tall woman with a large bone structure, a lot of curves and a lot of muscle structure. Being heavy means I have to buy clothes in a size that designers assume that I am so obese as to be shaped very differently proportionally than I actually am. (Not to say that I am not obese as well. But a women who is 5'2" and a size 24 is significantly heavier proportionately than I am and therefore shaped differently.) I have struggled to get decently fitting clothes for a lot of my life and that struggle has become truly embarrassing and disheartening in the last, well 100LBS. Even a women's 18 seems like it may be easier to find a decent fit then I have been able to find in a long time. That may just be wishful thinking though.  We shall just have to see when I get there in a few weeks. :) Well, it's time to sign off and head to bed so that I can wake up to my birthday morning and three shining faces who want to decorate the little birthday cakes I baked for my day. Don't you just love the ironies of motherhood of teeny-tines?

Still Begining, But 32 LBS Down

I am still trying hard to get to a smaller shape. As I read past posts I am reminded of why I keep trying and how hard different paths can be.  I have tried exercise, only to be derailed by DS and then by injury (a broken toe ended the Jillian exercise tapes). I have tried specific food diets but have not always had the luxury of making that choice financially (DH has been laid off for over 1/2 of the last 2 years). This particular path began with a bit of hopelessness, desperation and even a bit of self disgust.  Negative as that sounds it was the thing that made me ask questions of a friend who has made good progress towards her ideal weight and to listen to what she said. I am not a person who EVER imagined myself at a Weight Watchers meeting. However she spoke of it helping and as I considered my reservations I forced myself to open my mind a bit and consider it. Why shouldn't I go to a meeting? I run support group meetings for women and believe passionately in their ability to help. Yes I can do this without paying for help, except I wasn't making it happen. So I finally just went that next Tuesday evening and in some ways it has changed my life.  I have hope that I can do this.  I have found my own particular issues in excess calories. Not being a soda drinker, a fast food run regular or a junk food junkie I never has those things which I thought could just be cut from a persons diet and just magically take off 5-40LBS. The point tracking has made me find my own personal issues, because lets face it, at 298 LBS I had them.  For me it has been about evaluation nutritional density and realizing that on a day with nutrient dense, super-food filled breakfast,I really need to eat a green salad lunch! This balance has been a shift that is largely responsible for having lost 32LBS so far! Yeah!! However I am still at a ridiculously heavy weight for my height and for being 2.6 years postpartum. My pants are too big again, though I am still wearing them with a belt and they are the same ones I have been wearing for 4+ years. Still, hope is coming here to roost more often and I am actually feeling a bit proud of my accomplishment. 250 will be a bigger moment of pride though and I may even let them mention my losses in the meetings when I get there. I will finally be entering into numbers that truly feel like I am making a difference. For now I am just taking it a day at a time.