Transformation Update: 09/30/13

sarah-front-092913sarah-side-092913For the first time in a while, I’m actually excited to post an update.  I feel like I’m making real progress, and I have a lot of neat things to report.

First, since I’m in a new “decade”, I had my husband take a new set of progress pictures.  I weighed 228 this morning which means I’ve lost 3.2 pounds since last Monday.  It also means that I’m sitting at a new low since starting this journey in July of 2011.  In fact, to be honest, I’m not entirely certain that I haven’t been in the 220s since the second half of 2005 (although I might have dipped briefly into the 220s after my youngest was born in late 2007.) It feels good to see these kinds of numbers, but I don’t feel like I’ll really be able to breathe ’til I’m a little farther away from the 230 mark.

Like I’ve said before, I don’t FEEL like I’ve lost over 50 pounds since 2011, but I am starting to notice that I’ve lost SOME weight.  In fact, the shirt I’m wearing in my progress photo was a gift from my mother-in-law last December.  When I first got it, my belly would hang out of the bottom of it if I wasn’t careful.  (I have a long torso, but still.) When I put the shirt on yesterday, I really noticed how much roomier it had gotten since last winter.  And then I REALLY noticed a difference when I went to get the sweater that “went with it”; it’s bordering on too big.

My mother-in-law always picks out the greatest clothes for me, but this year, I think I’m going to have to tell her to look for size 20s instead of size 24s.  That puts a smile on my face.

I’m also extremely proud of myself for making it through an especially challenging moment yesterday.  Our little town has an annual festival that’s a BIG deal.  I think our population grows at least one thousand percent during the festival weekend.  There are pioneer crafts, animals, bands, a car show, a HUGE parade, and of course, festival food.

My entire family rode on the Cub Scouts’ float in yesterday’s parade, and we brought some money with us so that we could get something to eat afterward.  It was a cold and rainy day yesterday, so I actually wanted to just go home and get warm after the parade, but I did want to let the kids have some “fair food”.

Nothing appealed to me.  I was REALLY craving a cheeseburger (no bun) with all the fixin’s, but nobody had anything like that.  I did manage to bring home a big bag of fresh pork rinds.  They were quite tasty, but they weren’t really hitting the spot for me.  My daughter ended up eating some homemade chicken and noodles which I thought was a perfect choice for such a cold, rainy day.  My husband had a “taco in a bag”, and he seemed to enjoy that.  Again, that didn’t bother me either.  My boys though — their choice was hard.

Both of my boys picked a funnel cake.  Neither boy had ever had one before.  (They’re eight and almost six.) My youngest was really dubious until he tasted it.  Then he was really grateful that we let him have such a special treat.  I loved watching those boys enjoy their treat, but after a while, it started to get really hard.  The funnel cake smelled SO good, and I’ve had funnel cake maybe 3 times in my own life, so my dark side started talking to me.  “Just ask Kevin for one bite.  It smells SO good and it’ll taste SO good and you can stop after just one bite.  And you know Kevin’ll gladly give you that one bite.  Come on! Just this once.  It’ll be alright.”

Literally, the request for funnel cake was on the tip of my tongue four or more times, but the angel who loves me and protects me from myself would intercede every time.  “Sarah, you really don’t want to do that ’cause you KNOW Kevin’ll give you a bite and you KNOW that one bite won’t be enough and you KNOW that when all’s said and done, you’ll have downed a funnel cake, a pint of ice cream, a pound of peanut M & M’s, an entire can of Pringles, an entire bag of butterscotch hard candies, and you’ll wash it down with some root beer.  Then, you will have gained ten or more pounds in a couple days and it’ll take you four or five WEEKS to take it back off again.  Do you really want that?”

If you’ve never suffered with food addiction, then it’s hard to understand these obsessive, compelling thoughts and actions.  If I weren’t in ketosis, I KNOW I wouldn’t be able to work through these challenges the way I have thus far.  It was agonizing, really, but I came through feeling truly victorious.  And what’s more, my blood sugar this morning was 84 AND I saw a new low on the scale.  Take THAT, you dumb old funnel cake!

It’s a process, I know.  Every one of these successes gets me that much closer to my goal though, and I’m finally starting to see that I’m more than a third of the way there.  It may not sound like much to some, but for me, it’s HUGE.  (No pun intended!)

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