How I lost 25 lbs...

Thursday, June 18, 2015

I am not about to tell you about an amazing pill, program, diet, or magic weight loss portal. I do not own a magic wand that can instantly make all your extra weight disappear. Boy I wish I did! The actuality, is that if I had such a wand, this post would be titled "How I lost 100+ lbs..." because let's be honest, 25 lbs is a barely a drop in the bucket for me.

Part of me didn't want to say anything about my 25 lbs weight loss, because hello! Still heavy. Normally when you shout "I lost 25 lbs!" women will crowd around you asking how you did it with jealousy dripping off of every word. But when you are as heavy as I am, 25 lbs doesn't get noticed by the outside world.

I certainly notice it. My go to jeans are now so big on me, MC Hammer sent his driver to collect them.

Kidding, they're still comfy! I'm keeping those pants...for now.

The truth is that I am afraid of the jeans I own that do fit.

I bought those "skinny" (HA!) jeans 6 years ago. They fit great for about a month before I found myself pregnant with baby two. When we moved I donated all of my clothes, too big or too small, except for those jeans. They were basically brand new, but really I just wanted something to gauge my progress or lack of by. Once every 6 months or so I'd try them on. At first, they wouldn't pass my thighs. Then later on, they got passed my thighs but asking them to button was like trying to walk from Florida to Australia. There was a huge gap!

Now that they do fit, my brain won't except it. They go on easily. They look good, or at least Robert says they do. But in my mind, they are about to explode into jean dust if I so much as breathe deeply. I put them on and I start doing lunges, squats, and complicated yoga moves daring them to evaporate. Then I take them off, put them back in the drawer and put on the jeans that I swim in.

Until last week when I wore them in public for the first time. My friends all commented on how nice I looked. Probably because they could see my face instead of being distracted by my saggy baggy elephant jeans. I spent that hour, distracted, wondering if I heard a popping sound or felt a breeze that I shouldn't be feeling. But the truth was, they aren't even tight.

This is why weight loss is a mental game. If it was purely physical it would be easy. Mental set backs, insecurities, and imaginary too tight jeans hold you back. They hold me back.

It is getting better though. I no longer binge eat. That took therapy and medication to kick. But I did it.

I am not afraid to wear my bathing suit to the gym anymore. I'm at a gym! I know how much I weigh. I know what I look like. That's why I am at the gym. I don't care if someone doesn't like it. I'm not there for them, I'm there for me. And it's hot outside...

Losing weight is a crazy roller coaster of emotions and set backs. It's not a nice straight descent from your highest weight to your goal weight. That line zigs and zags. It draws Elsa's ice castle. It mocks you.


That blue line? That's my progress. I stopped weighing myself constantly. I stopped counting calories (because that made me bounce between starving myself and binge eating once I couldn't take it anymore). I stopped worrying about those numbers.

My progress has been super slow. But it's progress and it's mine. Much like life, my weight loss progress is going to be all over the place and messy. My progress might not make sense to someone else, but I'm going to own it and be proud of it all the same. It might take me longer to get where I'm going, but eventually I will get there all the same. Eventually those jeans will also be too big and I'll have to convince myself to go down another size.

For now, I'm going to start working on the next 25 lbs the same way I did the last. At a slow zig.

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