It's the weekend and so far, it's going rather nicely. I did my regular Saturday morning "official" weigh-in and I'm actually down a pound this week. To be totally honest, it shocked the hell out of me but I'm really pleased about it. Exercise was a mix of shovelling and riding my recumbent bike, eating was just on the border of being okay this week (meaning I was okay as far as calories go but some things were a little fattier than I usually like them to be). I was expecting that the February boredom, the tired feeling I had all week (which led to a smidgen of snackin') would show a gain but nope, I'm down. yay! This means I'm really really close to being back into virgin fat territory again and this totally makes me smile.

I'll apologize in advance for the rambling nature of this post but I've just had a lot of this stuff swirling around in my head lately and I felt like I needed to get it out and onto the page so to speak.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the pace at which I'm losing. I'm definitely moving at a slower rate than I was last year at this time. I've been telling myself (and I believe this, I don't think it's an excuse) that the slower I lose it, the better. Afterall, this isn't a "diet" this is real life. This is not something that we'll stop doing some day, it's forever. We've changed the way we feed our bodies, I'm a regular exerciser girl now and eventually, the good things I do for myself will show the results I want. Pretty much weekly, I'm surprised (and impressed) by things my body can do that used to practically kill me before:

1. I can now shop for more than 15 minutes at a time, I can now do several hours in the mall if I feel like it. The "before" me would be gagging for air on a bench after 30 minutes.

2. I can now run up and down the stairs at work, sometimes 2 or 3 times in a row if need be, sometimes carrying boxes full of printing. The "before" me would be panting and trying to figure out how to spread it out so I didn't have to do too many trips up and down at the same time.

3. Walking, walking, walking!! The "before" me had gotten to a point where routes were carefully plotted out in advance so that the shortest distance required would be walked.

These are simple things that everyone should be able to do easily. The bottom line though is that I couldn't do them easily. I'd let myself get to a point where my fitness level was absolute shit. Even though I'm still a fat girl (and if you didn't know me and saw me on the street you might not think it possible) but I'm in great shape underneath the fat suit. Probably better than I've been since high school. I know that in the past, when I weighed less than I do right now, I was not as healthy and strong as I am now. I hold my head high now and my body moves with grace. My body doesn't lumber along the way I notice that some fat women do. I work hard to remind myself of how far I've come, and try not to dwell too much on how far I've got to go still. I'll get there eventually. It's not going to happen overnight but, as I wrote at the beginning of 2004, if I can lose 70 pounds this year, like I did in 2003, I'll be really pleased with myself. If I don't quite make it to 70 this year, it'll be okay because I'll still have lost something (40? 50? 60?) and I definitely won't have gained any and, I'll be another whole year healthier than I was before.

I think a lot about something Dr. Phil says about how no matter what you do, the next year will come and go and you'll either get real about your fat or you'll be real fat. He was right. Last year I did something about my fat and now I have less of it. This year, I'm plugging away at it again and this time next year, I'll have even less of it that I'm hauling around.

Overall, I'm focusing on all the good things that we're doing for ourselves that we hadn't been doing before. One of my resolutions this year was to not let myself get bogged down on the bad stuff and focus on the good. It's totally working. I'm finding work more manageable, for sure. I've finally figured out how to leave all the toxic stuff and the stress at work. This has helped me so much, I sleep better at night (I'm not waking myself up because I'm grinding my teeth because I'm dreaming that someone is pulling them out!) and I'm in a better mood all the time (I think anyway -- you'd have to ask my hunny for confirmation!). I feel healthy and happy and strong more often than I feel whiney, tired and/or sick. The good days far outnumber the bad ones these days. The key too is that I don't dwell on bad days (bad work days, bad eating days, bad hair days...). I just pick myself up and start fresh the next day. It's all about perspective baby,attitude is everything!