Friday, December 10, 2004

What a wondrous thing

the human body is. I've been trying to pay special attention to the changes in my body as I lose the weight and even though I've only lost 25 pounds I've still noticed quite a few changes. I've learned that these things are called NSV's...non-scale victories. Who would have thought there was a term.

I have these pants, 3 pairs of them actually, and they zip on the side. I've never been able to zip them while they're pulled up, still can't. I can't reach around my belly plus I'm left handed and it all just goes terribly wrong. But I bought them anyway figuring, like most women, I will devise a plan of attack and they WILL work (don't even pretend that you've never laid on a bed to get pants zipped up people). So, every time I wear these pants, which is often, I zip them BEFORE I pull them up. Now, 25 pounds ago that was quite a chore. My hips and my tummy played tug-o-war every single time causing me to wiggle ever so gracefully into them. Well, wiggle no more my friends. I can just pull em up with very little effort.

I have a fairly new car. This new car has a gas door opener that I've never been able to reach without taking my seatbelt off, or the trunk for that matter. When I started losing this weight I told my sister "Some day, oh yes, some day...I will reach that gas door opener." Ya'll that day was last Friday. I decided to give it a go and praise be to Jesus I reached it. I instantly called my sister and whispered into my phone so as not to let the guy pumping my gas hear and we had mini fiesta right there at gas pump 4. After Christmas shopping with her she asked me to pop my trunk and I reached for my seatbelt (as was custom). I stopped and said, "Shall we go 2 for 2?" I pulled the lever, opened the trunk and screamed "Woo ha, I can reach that too biaaaatch." It's the little things.

Then there are the moments of desperation where 25 pounds down could not have come in any more handy. Just today I raced into the bathroom and could NOT for the life of me get the zipper on my JEANS down. In a moment of desperation I just grabbed the waistband, EASILY pulled my buttoned AND zipped jeans down, and then back up just as easily. JEANS people, JEANS!! It was that moment that I became extremely thankful that I've been losing weight.

There are weird things you notice about your body too. I try to assess the losses by looking in a full length mirror every so often (this is not for the faint of heart, trust me) and to my wonder and amazement, just because something has gotten smaller on the right side of your body, doesn't mean the left side is taggin along. I have a small roll on my back where your bra hits (hard to find amongst the other rolls so I'm trying to draw you a map as we speak) I looked at my right profile in the mirror one day and rejoiced when I noticed that the roll was gone. I turned to assess the left side and it was there. Right side, gone. Left side, there. Right side???? Left side??? What the???? I'm lopsided!!! It's a cruel cruel world.

Non-scale victories are crucial...especially when you haven't been having many victories ON the scale. I weighed myself this morning and I had only lost 1 pound, as did I last week. I reached my 25 pound milestone and here I am beating myself up because it looks like I probably won't reach my goal of losing 10% by Christmas. I do realize that I'm losing the weight at a healthy rate but it doesn't seem to matter. I do realize that I have lost TWENTY FIVE pounds and I should be so proud of myself but, curses, all I see is the fact that I'm not accomplishing what I had set out to do by Christmas. Do I keep my eye on the prize and just try really REALLY hard the next two weeks? Possibly, but I know that losing 10.5 pounds in two weeks isn't very realistic so why set myself up for another failure. I just need to find my focus again. I need to remember how I felt and looked 3 months ago and 25 pounds ago. I need to remember that as little as 3 weeks ago I couldn't pop the door to my gas tank without taking my seatbelt off. I need to remember that I can do this...because I am fierce.

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