It really bothers me that I’m having such an urge to cheat lately.  Granted, I’m under a great deal of stress from various quarters, but I think there’s something else going on as well.  See, I made it into that next “decade” of pounds yesterday, and ever since seeing that on the scale, I’ve been dreaming of cookies, candy and cake.  (The Holy Trinity of C-foods, if you will.)  I haven’t given in, but the thoughts are bad enough.

I seem to remember this from last time I lost weight; I get below a certain point and I think I freak out.  After all, I’ve never been healthy, so why should I be allowed to be so now?  Who am I to have a nice body?  Who am I to want to be able to dance and run without self-consciousness?  Who am I to take care of myself?

I don’t know how to be thin, and since I’m now about three pounds “overweight”, that reality’s coming closer and closer.  It scares the hell out of me.

I’m SO close to being in the next “decade” of pounds, but today I have PMS and I just can’t get enough food to feel satisfied.  (I’m not going crazy with it, and not having anything I’m not “allowed”, just a couple of snacks I wasn’t planning on.  But the calories scare me!)

I may have to not allow myself to weigh until after my period, just to avoid a freakout.

I was just about to sit down and write a post about how amazing it is, that I see so much difference after only losing “a few pounds”.  And then I realized…I’ve lost fourteen pounds since the time I’m remembering, when I felt so smushy and shlubby.  It doesn’t seem like much, somehow, when I think of having already lost it…but then I think of how I’d feel if I still had to lose it, and it suddenly seems a ridiculously large amount that I could never, NEVER manage!  (Yes, I do still feel this way about the remaining weight, but that’s okay.  It just makes every tiny bit of loss feel like a miracle.)

What’s kind of fun is that I’m juuuuust about halfway to my final goal.  Lost fourteen since the last major slip-up, and now have fifteen more to go.  So with the next pound I drop, I’ll jump from “not quite halfway there” to “over halfway there!”  And those kinds of calculations will be more and more in my favor as time goes on; it will be very, very nice to say “I’m 100% there!” and finally arrive at making maintenance my focus.

But regardless of my screwy thinking, I was serious about the difference I’m seeing, and the funny thing is that it’s only happened within the last few days.  Of course, I’ve seriously upped my exercise levels by getting back to my bellydancing, but I wouldn’t think that would cause such a huge improvement in my body right away.  So maybe it’s just that I’m feeling more confident, or maybe my figure really is reshaping itself.  I don’t measure, so I can’t know for sure.

Either way, I’m likin’ it.

I’m going to have to be careful today; I just had grilled beef tenderloin for breakfast, and according to FitDay, that’s already 350 calories or so.  That’s honestly more than I tend to eat in a meal (although it was GOOD!), and certainly more than I usually have for breakfast.  Maybe I’ll take a nap later so I don’t eat again for a while, lol.

Just don’t want to screw this up when I’m doing so well!  There have been many times in the past when I’ve found myself seemingly trying to sabotage my weight loss; I think some part of me is afraid to be thin and healthy, but there are so many potential reasons that it’s impossible to narrow them down to just one.  So it’s become a behavior I just have to watch for, since I don’t know its cause and thus can’t know its cure.

I think that getting away from a certain toxic individual has helped, though; I’m beginning to realize that I do deserve good things.  And what’s more of a “good thing” than being healthy and beautiful? 

Go, me!

I am so loving these wristbones.  For serious.

I REALLY should have known better than to go off the low-carbing even for one meal, as it’s proven hard as hell to get back on track.  I haven’t weighed in a few days because I’m frankly terrified; the intention is to stay the course until Friday, then check the damage then.  For one thing, my period’s here early thanks to messing up on my pills, so I’m dealing with some water retention on top of the carb cheat.

Unfortunately, I’m also starving.  I try to keep my daily calories below 1400–and yes, I know you’re not supposed to count calories on Atkins, but I have to because of previous metabolic screwups; I lose very, very slowly, and I refuse to raise my calories and gain weight in the meantime while I wait for my body to reset itself.  I have jeans to wear, people!

Anyway, yeah.  Not pleasant over here today.  I shouldn’t have had such an early breakfast, because I’ve been wanting to nosh all day.  Grrr!

Nacho cheese Doritos aren’t low-carb.  Who knew?

LOL…at least I’m back on track.  Gained a pound after that little indulgence, but thankfully no sugar cravings resulted.  I’ll just have to be more diligent in the future.

I’m having a lot of trouble lately with that creeping feeling that I’m somehow just meant to be a dumpy little woman.

Good thing I’m more stubborn than Fate, haha.

In other news, the Belly Twins are evil incarnate.  I’m trying my best to make it through the “Beyond Basic Dance” DVD, in half-assed (don’t I wish!) preparation for the bellydance class I’m starting on the 4th, but…ow.  This is what I get for staying away from dancing for so long.

Well, I get this and flabby thighs, but no matter; those will go soon enough.

…as before I dropped this last two pounds I was stuck at the same weight for a week and a half (thank you Aunt Flo), but it would will be nice to see that number go down again.  Gotta think positive, ya know.

I am hoping to be in the next “decade” of pounds by Halloween, as I’d really like to find a party and dress up in something cute.  I know I could do that now, but the dress I have in mind as the base for my costume is still a shade tight in the hips.  Ideally, I’d like to see a three or four pound loss, but given how slowly I tend to lose even in ketosis, that may not happen.  My metabolism’s better than it was right after I got away from starving myself, but it’s still not great.

Oh well, I’ll reach my goal eventually.  I look good now; I just want to look better.  (And yes, I know that in a perfect world I’d be doing this simply for my health, but I’m vain, dammit.)

I have noticed that since losing this last little batch of pounds, I’ve started to feel more comfortable wearing “look at me” clothes.  Not tight or slinky–that’s just not me.  But unusual things that catch the eye a bit, like a wrap or small cape, red shoes, stuff other than the standard.  I have a lot of friends who fall on the pro-fat side of the fence and scold me for not wearing that stuff when I’m heavier.  (Some of them have even scolded me for trying to lose more weight, which…yeah, that pretty well ticked me off.)

But I can’t help it.  I know it’s everyone’s right to dress as they please as long as the vital bits are covered when in public, but I do not personally think that every kind of clothing looks good on every body.  If it makes you feel sexy or beautiful, well, good for you, but it doesn’t do anything for me.  And when I feel overweight or flabby, the last thing I want to do is call attention to my looks, so I dress sedately.  That’s just how it is.

Hmmm, didn’t realize I had a mini-rant brewing.  I guess my friends and acquaintances bugged me more than I thought.  Oh well, better out than in, as Hagrid says.  Yes, I am a Potter fan; I’ve thus far resisted the Twilight series, which seems to be the newest OMGCRAZE!, but I’m sure I’ll succumb eventually.

And that’s about all the news that’s fit to blather at this point.

I guess it would be a good idea to go ahead and update this thing.

I’m back, obviously.  It seems like every time I leave the 3FC site things just go all to hell; I stopped concentrating on what I was doing, went a little crazy with the eating, and got lazy with the dancing and other exercise.  And when I stepped on the scale September 1st of this year, I realized that I’d regained about 20 pounds, although I’ve since lost 13 of them.  So yay for that last bit, I suppose.

What is decidedly UN-yay is that all of that weight seems to be fat and not muscle, because I’m just barely squeezing into the size six jeans I was working to get OUT of, last time.  (You’d think that recently buying new clothes in a larger size would have been enough of a wake-up call, but noooooo.)  So it’s going to take a while before I whittle myself down into the fours again.  But that’s okay; the time will pass whether I lose weight or not, so I may as well just take each day as it comes and accept a slow loss.  I figure that it’s actually a good thing, because it’s proof of how close I am to goal.  (Although I have to admit I’d certainly appreciate a five-pound drop in a week, like I used to see when I started!)

So given the discrepancy between my size at this weight now, and my size at this weight two years ago, I’m going to be going by both scale and clothing.  I still have those size four jeans somewhere around, and I’ll keep exercising until they fit again.  And this time I’ll STAY there.

I think I just needed a little life lesson.  There is no finish line to this, no magic place at which the fat’s banished forever, and exercise isn’t a quick-fix that gets dropped at the first sign of success.  I never believed people when they said that maintenance takes just as much commitment as weight loss, but it would seem they were telling the truth.  This is something I’m going to have to keep up for the rest of my life; it’s just a matter of making it habit.