Achievement

Earlier this year, maybe March, I finally looked into the mirror and I'm like, "I hate myself." Particularly the highly misnamed "love handles." I've never considered myself slim or skinny or anything like that and for a while I was decently happy at what I considered a heavier weight. I had a big butt, but I had figure!

The love handles effectively destroyed the figure and I hated how much my stomach poked out, how big my thighs were.

I was still ok with my butt.

And I've never had problems with my boobs being too big...

Anyway, I said, "No more." I started on the Sonoma diet which morphed somewhat into an avoidance of most carbs and a focus on fresh veggies and low-fat foods. I raged. The pounds seemed to creep off so slowly it could have been fluctuations in water weight, the normal pound more or less you see on scales. I started biking in the summer. I did RAGBRAI and didn't lose a pound, probably because I was eating every two hours while biking. Lost a bit more the week after.

And the funny thing is, even though it took me months and months, it crept off.

I haven't lost anything real significant. I was at around 167 at my heaviest and I'm down to 142, so about 25 pounds. Biggest Loser wouldn't be interested and if any magazine is like, "They lost 25 pounds!" I'm like, no big deal. But that 25 pounds was a big deal to me. I lost my love handles. My stomach is a lot flatter, to the point it doesn't poke out of shirts. My size 12 jeans bag around my butt. My face is even slimmer, which I wasn't expecting, but I'm pretty happy about. And my bras still fit. Win.

Another thing I wasn't expecting was to have other people notice. I figured what was obvious to me in the mirror while dressing was safely hidden under fitted shirts and large sweatshirts. Apparently, I was wrong. Steve from Bike World noticed and asked my mom. This is a guy I don't even see once a month, and not at all during the winter.

So about two years ago now, I purchased a shirt I liked from Threadless.com. It was one of those that had fallen out of print and come back in and I requested it and when it was back in print, they sent it to me. I had picked size medium, but when I tried it on, it was just depressing. It was so awful I couldn't wear it. So I stuck it back in the bag thinking I'd send it back, but I never got around to it.

A few weeks ago, I pulled it out of a box while looking for something else and tried it on again. And it fit.

I call it my achievement shirt.

My original goal was 135, just so I had a number to work toward, but in reality I think that's about as low as I want to be. My other goals included getting below the BMI overweight threshold (yes, I was above it), and getting low enough that when I stepped on scales fully clothed with food in my stomach, I'd be below 149, cause that's the lowest threshold for plasma donation, as in I keep more of my plasma. If only I could donate it.

I'm not really trying right now. I've been around 142 for a while and I'm just trying to make sure I don't go back up.

And man, I feel sexy.