Reflections a Year Later: The Mental Part

I still find myself passing by racks of clothes in certain stores that I knew never had my size.

Except, that was when I was an extra large in shirts, and a 16 in jeans. I'm proud to say that I'm now a medium (sometimes a small) and a 6 in jeans, a recent development. My 8's were getting baggy.

Even though I did the hard work myself, no one did it for me, I still find myself in disbelief. In the past month, I ran into three people I hadn't seen in a long time, and the first words out of their mouths was some variation of: "Wow! You're skinny!".

I walked on air the rest of the day, following those three separate occasions.

I never heard the word "skinny" in association with my former 200+ pound self. I weigh less now (147) than I have my entire adult life. You know how most people look back at their high school or college pictures, wistful? Not me. I cringe. How did I let myself get so big? Why did I think that was okay? Why did I immediately tune out the doctor when she took out her BMI chart, and showed me how I was entering the red zone- the obese zone?

The truth is, I did think it was okay. I still convinced myself that I looked "good enough". I didn't see a reason to change my habits. That was, until I realized I was passing my bad habits onto my children, which I wrote about in this post. That's what finally prompted my 62 pound weight loss.

I don't always feel "skinny". I still have times where I eat a little too much, and my stomach grumbles at me, "Why?". The difference between now and a year ago, is that my healthy eating has become a habit, not something I have to continuously think about. Because I eat clean 85-90% of the time, I do indulge a little here and there the other 10-15% of the time. I know I can have a cider donut and not have it set me back 5 lbs. I know that I can eat that extra slice of pizza because it's not something I have often at all, unlike before.

I finally bought my first "for fun" clothing purchase since my weight loss (losing weight is awesome, rebuilding your entire wardrobe on a fixed income is not). It's a cute little dress. It's not something I'll be able to wear this year because it's considerably colder out, but definitely next. I hope to go out dancing in it, or to a date night or maybe wear it just because. It's the kind of thing I almost walked right by, forgetting that now I can wear this dress. They carried my size- medium.