Got a few things on my mind...

I don't know to express all that's moving around in this head of mine. So, I figure I'll just start...this might be kind of random, but so am I.

I feel good. I mean really good. It's nice to not have a lot of aches and pains each day when I get up in the morning and equally nice to go to bed at night with out feeling like I'm old. I know I need to exercise but I am having a real aversion to getting up early and actually doing anything but drink coffee at the moment. My hubby has been really good about going to the gym in the morning. I feel like his efforts are benefiting me through osmosis, since we do sleep together. That's my story, I'm sticking to it.


I cleaned out my car yesterday and I had a pair of jeans in it. The jeans had been there, because they fell out of my suitcase when I was digging for something back in October, I know I should have done this sooner. In any case. These jeans are a size 20. I wore them to Ohio when my husband and I went for his mini class reunion. I was down 45 pounds at the time and the pants were a little loose on me, but still wearable. I also had some 18's that fit me pretty good. Okay, since then 3 months have gone by and I have have barely lost any weight. I have lost 7 or 8 pounds, depending on what day it is. But this morning I put those pants on and I was blown away by how big they were on me. I am wearing a size 16 jeans right now and tops in a regular XL all the way to a 14 depending on the top. I can't believe that 7-8 pounds could make this kind of difference. I have heard bandsters say repeatedly that you may not be losing weight but things are changing and you're losing inches. I must say I've always thought that was horse shit, but I am a genuine recipient of that phenomenon right now, and who am I to question it. Either way, I'm telling you that in the last few days I have seen a real difference in the way I look to myself. It makes me feel good.

Tomorrow night my husband and I are going to a Mardi Gras ball. Last year when I was getting ready for this same ball, I did not feel so good about myself or the event. I had a new outfit, a size 3X skirt and a size 18 top that was so freaking tight I could barely breathe, the one saving grace was that there was a jacket that went with the top that was sort of flowing and it covered a lot. But this year, I have the outfit and I'm excited about wearing it. I can't remember the last time that I was really excited about wearing anything to any event. Clothes have for the last couple of decades been a source of stress for me, because I feel like when you're really heavy, people are judging you and that in order to look good you can't feel good too. So much girdling so much pushing and prodding, hell, it's exhausting. I'm so excited that I have an outfit that I think is pretty, that I feel good in and I feel comfortable in it too. That to me is a huge victory.

My husband has never said anything negative to me about my weight. The only thing he has ever said is that he loves me and wants me to be happy, that he hates to see me feeling bad about myself and that he wants me to lose weight if that's what I want. He fully supported me having weight loss surgery, he has always told me that he loves me and he thinks I'm beautiful. He fell in love with me fat, he married me fat, but I've always felt like he was lying when he said those things. I would never tell him how much I weighed, I would never tell him what size I wore, as if suddenly having proof that I was heavy was going to make him come to his senses and haul ass. I've been really unfair to him on many different occasions, because I have let my feelings for me cloud my judgement when it came to his feelings for me. He has never wavered, it's just been me doing the flopping around, one day feeling good, one day feeling bad. What torture we put our men through when we struggle with body image and self appreciation. As a woman, there are so many times when I have said the words, "I just want to be appreciated!" I have been asking those around me to give me something that I couldn't give myself, appreciation. I knew deep inside of me that I was the same person on the inside regardless of what my outside was like, but that was only a half truth. I'm not the same person on the inside anymore. Suddenly this exterior transformation, though it's not complete, has changed me on the inside. It has allowed me to appreciate myself now and as I was before. It has made me see just how much the man I love, has loved me. He has loved me in varying degrees of fat and fit and varying degrees of crazy and sane. He has done what I couldn't do for myself. I'm finally seeing what I couldn't see before. The changes have taken place, some small some big, some meaningful, some not so much. But the things that resonates with me today is that last year when he stood next to me in my outfit, he thought I was beautiful and he told me that, and because I felt badly and I wasn't happy with me, in my mind I labeled him a liar. So, today I'm going to make a real effort to appreciate the nice things he says to me. I'm going to be kinder to him and to me. And when he looks at me before the ball and tells me he thinks I'm beautiful, I'm going to say thank you and I'm going to take it for what it is. The man who loves me and thinks I'm beautiful, telling me so.

Told you there was a lot of stuff going on in this head of mine!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Big Hugs!
T