almost... "NORMAL"

My little love, A, is turning 4 in six days. OMG (more on that later). this past saturday was his "finding ne.mo" birthday party. the morning started out beyond stressful (there was a 5K going on at the site of his birthday with no entrance into the rec center - enough said) but everything turned out well. unfortunately, i was seriously S.T.R.E.S.S.E.D. throughout the whole party, though. too bad... :( but little love seemed to have a great time. another point of stress was that my size 16W Levi's kept falling down. i'm THRILLED that i'm now a size 14 jeans (YAHOO!) - but wish i didn't come to that realization during his party. in some pics you can actually see my pink underwear! yikes!!!

one super cool thing i noticed, though, is that i look somewhat "normal" in the photos (albeit tired)! i used to rarely allow my pic to be even taken and when it was... well, i looked pretty darn big... see photos above (for some reason, i can't move them to this paragraph - annoying!) of me in the first pic - in the black dress. it was taken in june 2008 - and that wasn't even at my highest weight. i look BIG, esp. next to my (admittedly very thin) friend. now, in the recent pics taken on saturday, i look somewhat "normal". i'm not "standing out" (literally) for being so large. even though, i must confess, i did zoom in the pic of me standing and analyzed "the fat rolls" that you could see in my apparently-too-tight-but-so-cute new gap t-shirt. anyway, it feels GREAT to look normal again and not stand out (even though my undergarments were - ugh)!!! it also felt great to buy 2 short, form-fitting dresses last week that are beyond cute.

About 10 pounds to go until my bmi changes from "obese" to "overweight". looking forward to that day. then it will really feel REAL (hopefully). i definitely feel like "myself" again. it's the best motivator yet (well, that and the cute dresses, haha). ;)

Food is no longer my friend & other updates

Hello all! Happy (very belated) New Year!!! I have missed writing here so much! Been incredibly busy with the holidays, trip to CA, getting back into the routine/work, etc. The good news is that I'm still doing really well with the program. I "celebrated" six months on the program this past weekend and am down 91.6 pounds, officially. Here are some other highlights:

-- Holidays were difficult, in terms of food. I LOVE BAKED GOODS and one of my students baked the most delicious "snowflake" and choc. chip cookies for me - YUM! I had 1-2 little cookies a day and a few "tastes" of other "holiday" foods for a few weeks in December. I even ate very fattening food - but in moderate amounts - at a holiday brunch one morning. It was the most "tempted" I had been since starting the program. My strategy of just having "a little bit" worked, though... this holiday season, at least. Very, very cool.

-- We went to Palm Springs, CA to meet up with my brothers at the end of the month. It was great spending time with them even though A was a MESS being outside of his "comfort zone" (home). He was overtired, overstimulated, overeverything most of the time which caused a ridiculous amount of stress for me. Food-wise, I did great, if I do say so myself. :) I ate out 1-2 meals a day - which I had planned to do - and had protein bars/shakes/yogurt the rest of the time (kinda like Plan B, I imagine). I made HEALTHY CHOICES the entire time (grilled chicken wrap sandwiches, salmon with veggies, frozen yogurt, etc.). It felt really great - eating what I wanted, for the most part - but choosing healthy items. This was HUGE for me (no pun intended) and hopefully a sign of future success of keeping the weight off. Hopefully.

-- I've come to realize that food is no longer my friend - both good & not-so-good news. A has been awesome - for the most part - since we've been back. However, he had a meltdown when I picked him up yesterday. Not sure what it was about - probably need for attention/boredom - but, once again, it really upset me and sent me a mini panic attack. I realized that I didn't want food then or even afterwards, when I was feeling a bit better. I realized that even if I had eaten (binged), it wouldn't have lessened the anxiety I was feeling - well, maybe for a minute but that's about it. I guess food can no longer dull my anxiety and pain. Which is great BUT it was a real comfort for so long... it's like swimming without a lifejacket - or something like that!

I'm running late for work so I need to end this post. I'll be back soon, though! :)