YAH, Boyeeeeeeee!

So check THIS out.

In 2006, I was wearing sizes 16 & 18, depending on the day or clothes. I'm 5' 3". That's pretty big even for someone who wears weight as well as I do. I'm a big boned little hobbit. But even so, I was too big and didn't feel good.

In March 2007, when I had shingles, the doc weighed me in at 198 lbs. Which was disheartening because I had trouble eating due to the shingles being in my mouth. So I thought for SURE I had lost some weight. If I had, that means I was probably topping 200. Nice. Very nice.

Fast forward to after the future ex leaves and mom is here trying to force feed me teensy amounts of food. So in May or June of 2007, I weighed in around 175. Not bad. I got really excited and thought, well, if I have to go through the hell of divorce, I better get SOMETHING out of the deal, eh? I had bought some size 14 pants and had to squeeze them on. But hey, it was still a smaller size.

Well, since my return from Boston a couple of weeks ago, I decided to actually make an effort to lose some size. I mean, the Divorce Diet is powerful and all but eventually the depression lifts and you start back to your old bad habits again. Who needs that?

I have been doing very small manageable things like:

• eating smaller portions - amazing how huge the portions are at my favorite restaurants. Amazing how much money I have saved by bringing home half and having that later for a meal.
• cutting out soda or limiting it to a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. I can't stand diet soda. Aspartame is a tool of the devil. So I only drink sugared soda. When I stopped doing that almost every day, that was the first real huge drop in size I saw. Just my stomach bloat alone was gone. Amazing.
• eating until I'm not hungry - which is way different than eating until I can't possibly eat another bite for fear of exploding like some Monty Python skit.
• eating soup for lunch - a good veggie & bean soup with a cheese stick cut up in it is incredibly filling.
• making better choices when I eat out. I can still go to Burger King with the boys. But now I leave off the fries and shake. Or I get a salad with chicken on it.
• eating more of the good stuff so I'm too full for dessert. At the baby shower the other day, the hostess (who is thin & fit, by the way) served only really awesome, tasty, good-for-you food. I didn't feel the least bit guilty eating my fill. So when they brought out the cake, I could actually say "no thanks" without weeping inwardly.
• not snacking with the boys. I used to eat snacks with the boys. Whatever they were eating. Cookies or whatever. Active little boys can have snacks like that. Sedentary 42 yr old women cannot. So I started snacking on pecans, almonds or peanuts. And maybe a very small yogurt.
• not snacking while I watch TV or blog or whatever I do after the boys are in bed. That's hard. I love a good evening with the idiot box and my favorite snacks. Even the not-so-evil snacks were just more food than I needed in a day. So it added up.

Now, I will confess that the initial reason for my zeal in this was due to thinking about a certain guy. But since I started dropping the size, I am SO stinkin' HAPPY! So now I'm doing this for ME.

So the giant "WOO HOO!" here is this:

My size 14s have been falling off me lately as I walk. And that's not a good thing. So today during lunch, I ran over to the mall and tried on some size TWELVE pants. They FIT. And without having to totally suck in your gut while you pray that those mirrors really aren't two way. I just fastened them. No wrestling into them or anything!!!! Let me tell you, if my size 14s weren't falling off already, I would have done a little jig in The Gap!

So I bought 2 pair of size twelve. I almost bought about 6 pair. But then thought, wait, don't waste your money! Because you're gonna be a size TEN by Christmas!!!!

Yah boyeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

4:20pm Edited: well the new size 12 jeans are officially a hit. I picked The Boy up from the bus just now. I had the new jeans on and a big ol' t-shirt - which rather undid the whole effort of looking svelt. My neighbor's daughter hops off the bus and, as she's running by me, says, "I like you in jeans. They make you look better!" and off she went. The approval of a fashion concious 3rd grade girl...not bad...