R2P2D10/35 - The Good News or the Bad News?

January 11, 2012

Round 2, Phase 2 (Very Low Calorie Day), Day 10/35

Well, I lost another pound overnight.  It sounds like I'm either very scatterbrained (I keep losing these things!) or that it's magic.  Neither is true.  I've worked for this 43.5 pounds to be forever lost.  Yet, that little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me this isn't real.

Take, for example, what I just experienced.

The Bad News (I always like to get that out of the way first)

My friend's daughter got married in November (which I blogged about in Round 1 ... when I moved my Phase 3 date up a couple of days so I could eat protein at the wedding, which worked out really well).  She just posted some pictures on FB of her wedding.  They were lovely, happy pictures.  The only problem?  I was in 2 of them.  And, I look as big as a house.  "You're on a diet, Julia, what's the problem?" you say?  Well, these pictures were taken on November 19.  Following me?  That was the day I entered into Phase 3, which means, I had LOST 33.8 pounds.  Uh huh.  So, basically, when I started this thing, I must have looked like I was as big as a house and a small SUV, if people at the wedding were telling Sumo Julia that I looked, "Great."  My my.  How can it be possible that I (who already thinks I'm about the ugliest and biggest person I know) see myself in a picture and realize that I'm wrong.  I'm WORSE than I thought?  I thought people always see themselves in the mirror worse than they are?  Not me.  I like to be different.  Meh.  : P

The Good News (yes, there is some!)

So, you know what I did with those pictures?  I saved them.  Why?  Because when I started this, I didn't like looking in a full length mirror.  I avoided getting my picture taken.  So, while I've done it all like the protocol (measuring myself, weighing myself, etc.) the one thing I didn't do was take before pictures.  So, the reason I saved these pictures is NOT to torture myself.  It's to remind myself that, had I not lost 33.8 pounds, those pictures would have looked even worse.  AND, I've lost almost 10 pounds since then.  AND, it's my incentive to lose more.  Not because I hate myself (which I don't ... I hate what I look like, but I don't hate myself, because I know that doesn't define me), but because I want to see myself emerge.  Remember my post from a few days back ... that emerging from a fat cocoon post?  Well, these 2 pictures are a case in point.  I've emerged from 9.7 more pounds that I was carrying around in that picture.  And, since I didn't dare take before pictures (see, I was trying to "hide" from my weight even when I was marching head-long into this!), I now have 2 ... a side and front shot.  And, let me tell you ... they are motivating.

So, here's to gentle reality helping to solidify good choices.  I'm NOT going back.  Thank you for being a part of this journey with me (I did say at the top of this blog that it was going to be the good, the bad and the ugly!) and helping me stay accountable!