Checking in

Life as a student is moving right along. School is busy, scary at times, but exciting. I can't believe that a year from now I will know as much as the juniors know now. It's amazing what can happen in a year.

I officially hit 50 lbs lost this week, about 5 weeks before the 1 year post op mark. (Or my first bandiversary, as some call it.) I only have to lose 2 more lbs to maintain the 1 lb per week average, which I mention because it seems likely that I might only lose 2 lbs between now and then. It's so up and down. Maybe if I fine tune my eating habits a bit, find the areas where I've been getting lax over the last several months, it will help. I do know that I am in a rebuilding phase right now, having just started strength training again in December after being away from it for a year. I lost about 40 lbs without strength training, and lost quite a bit of lean mass with that, so now I have to rebuild muscle so I can burn off the fat. That will take me some time. But, on a brighter note, I'm at the lowest weight I've been since I was about 19. I was thinking today about how happy I am to be wearing size 10 jeans now, and how we love certain sizes on the way down and hated them on the way up. I remember pretty clearly being a size 4 in junior high, a 6 in high school, and when I first had to go to a size 10--double digits--I was about 17 or 18 and was just appalled. Now it's been so long since I saw single digits, the size 10 is delightful. It's all about perspective.

So I officially have about 24 lbs to lose to reach my goal, but my goal gives me a BMI of about 28. I've always seen it as a long shot anyway, and only have a glimmer of a thought that I might be able to get lower than that. I don't know how I'll look or feel at that weight, but I suspect it might not really be overweight for me, despite what the BMI charts would say. That's the big mystery waiting for me at the end of the weight loss rainbow. But I need a goal before that, and I think my next one is just another 5 lbs. If I lost 3 more lbs before March 13, I'd be happy, and I would be just over 1 lb per week weight loss in my first year. Most people lose at a much faster rate than that, but I'm not most people, clearly. And I'm pretty much okay with that.

The snow tried to melt today, the temp got up to about 38 degrees and most of the icicles fell off the houses. The streets are wet and slushy. It's supposed to be in the 40s this weekend. But there is still plenty of snow on the ground. It will take a long time for all that to melt, especially since most of the storm drains are packed with snow from the snow plows. I think we are in for some more snow before this all goes away, but it can't happen soon enough for me. I'm over it!