Don't Look Back In Anger

My life has been pretty much the same routine in the past few weeks. Going to work, going to the gym. Dinner with friends and family on the week-ends. Nothing very exciting, really and certainly nothing I felt was worth blogging about.

Yesterday, I was shopping for a dress for my friends’ wedding. I’m very happy that I found one for just 50$ but I’m slightly bummed that I had to settle for a size 18. I had tried on size 16 pants a couple of weeks ago and they fitted nicely. I really hoped to be able to buy a size 16 dress, there is such a difference in the choices available when you can fit in a size 16 since a lot of brands carry up to 16 but not higher (it’s even better when you’re a size 8 or 10, but that’s not in my reach right now). 

My non-official short-term goal was to be at least down to 200 lbs by the wedding on Dec. 11^th. It is still feasible, but this effing plateau is likely to make it a race to the finish. Today, I am at 208 lbs which means 4 weeks to lose 8 pounds. I am still motivated to loose the weight, but I’m really anxious to move on to the next part of my life, where I won’t be consumed by thoughts of food (what to eat? When to eat? Can I eat this? How many calories is this?) and that my most useful app on the iPod won’t be “Lose It”. I want to be able to be content with how I am at the moment, without any thought of how much more I have to go and how great it’ll be when I reach a “normal” weight. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not all that much about wishful thinking I wouldn’t be finding faults in my body when I reach goal. It’s more about the irritants of being overweight. Shopping for clothes, boots (my calves do NOT fit into knee-high boots, no matter how badly I want to be able to wear those) is a clear reminder that even if, looking at myself in the mirror, I feel good about the road traveled so far, there is still a long way to go. A clear reminder that I am not up to society’s standards yet. By that I don’t mean I don’t think I’m beautiful (although this can be debated) but simply that on a day where I felt satisfied and confident, I got a reality check: girl, don’t delude yourself, you’re still fat. I still don’t see what’s in the mirror correctly. I used to think I was a size 18. I obviously wasn’t since I’ve since lost 25 pounds and I still can’t fit in a smaller size but looking in the mirror at home and at the gym, I felt pretty certain I would fit comfortably in a 16. I even picked up a size 14 from the rack because it was the biggest size in a dress I liked. I couldn’t zip up the sizes 16. I guess I’m more than slightly bummed about this. It feels like I’ve been doing all this work and it’s hardly noticeable. It makes this whole process and the past 3 ½ months really frustrating. 

** I wrote the first part of this post earlier today and decided to wait after the gym to publish it, in case my spirits improved. They did not. I've been hitting the gym pretty regularly all week and really giving it my all. I was really hoping to bust this plateau. When I weighed myself, I'm still at 209 lbs! Plateaus suck (even more)!