Non Scale Victories: Back on the Wagon

My husband has been traveling a lot for work this year.  It's above average lame and I try hard not to beat him down about it since it's not technically within his control.  He would probably say I should mention that I'm not always successful at not beating him down about it.  I would probably say I do the best I can and he should shut the hell up and get his own blog.

One side effect of the constant traveling thing is that when he is here it's like a celebration.  Yeah, Daddy's home!  Or in my case, Yeah, my lazy, fat butt gets to lay in bed while someone else takes the trash out!

The celebrations also include food.  There's some eating out.  Not that eating out has to be unhealthy or include inhaling everything I see.  But for me, it seems to lend itself to eating more than I should.  The portions are big, I'm not great at finding the best healthy choice on the menu that fits my picky eater requirements and I'm pretty much incapable of eating in a Mexican restaurant and not having chips and salsa.  Once a week is a fun treat.  Several days a week is a dent in your plan to shrink the size of your butt.

There's also a lot of crappy food entering my house.  My rule of thumb is that I can't inhale it if it's not currently in my house.  If I want a treat, I buy it in snack size not family size.  Family size is evil unless it's toilet paper.  Or eggos.  Because my kids eat lots of eggos and I'm tired of having to break down all the boxes.  But I digress.

Heaven help me, Cadbury mini eggs are tasty.  And that's a large bag that found its way into our house.  Which someone then dumped on paper plate and set out like hor dourves.  WTH.

My husband buys crap I wouldn't.  I buy 20 boxes of Thin Mints because everyone else loves them and I hate mint.  My husband buys anything and everything.  Many of them are yummy and sugary and call my name when I'm laying in bed watching crappy reality television.    

On top of all the celebrating, the weekend I ran my half marathon, I somehow translated carb loading the night before the race into Whatever I Want Weekend.  My eating got slightly off track.

It would be an easy slippery slope to fall right back into old habits.  I could feel that possibility looming in the air.

But I put the brakes on and got right back to being healthy.

I went shopping for all my favorite healthy snacks.  My fruit basket is full.  And when my body seemed confused that it wasn't getting as many calories as it had been a few days before, I even went back to basics and started tracking my calories on my phone like I used to back in the beginning. 

I'm super proud that I didn't let old habits slide in.  I count it as a definite non scale victory.

Although, I'd be okay if the scale decided to let me have a victory, too.  Just sayin'.

Linking up with ktjweighingin!

Non Scale Victory: Sometimes size does matter

The scale hasn't budged much for me recently.  This would normally make me obsess in my head about what I could have done differently to get different results.  But not this week.  Because this was the week I finally bought myself new jeans.

Size 10s! And I got to rip the tags off and put them in my closet! What is the world coming to!

The smallest pair I had before was a size 12.   I've owned smaller sizes in my lifetime.  But I had apparently given up all hope of ever wearing them again and gave them away.

So my closest bottomed out at 12.  And I'd been wearing those size 12 jeans for awhile and they'd been getting baggier and baggier as I lost weight.

And the baggier they got the more convinced my inner fat girl was that I must have accidentally pulled a pair of 14s out of the closet. And every time I'd double check the tag and see that they really were a 12.  And every time my inner fat girl would be amazed all over again.

It was a fun game but in the last couple weeks the 12s got loose enough that they could go on and off without unbuttoning or unzipping them.  And then accidentally dropping trow became an actual concern and it was time to shell out for a new pair.

So the crew and I hit the Old Navy.  While my children climbed through the clothing racks trying to avoid the random objects my husband was chucking at them from across the aisle to pass the time, I picked up one of each style of jeans to try on and figure out which kind I liked.

While picking them up, even knowing how baggy those 12s were and that it was the sheer bagginess of them that had gotten me into the store, I almost picked up some 12s to take into the dressing room with me just in case!  I know!  That's just nutty.  It totally is.  But my brain just immediately went there thinking I couldn't possibly fit in 10s.

When I came out of the dressing room, my husband asked if I took a picture while I was in there.  Um, hell yeah. They're size 10.  Did I mention that?  Because my butt in a size 10 is totally photo worthy.

But I do!  And they button.  And I can breath in them.  And move around.  And smile endlessly every time I realize they are size 10.

Because that's what size I wear now.  Because even though my inner fat girl still thinks I'm a size 12, I'm not.  Wild.

I haven't worn a size 10 in like nine years.  I'm still 5 pounds from what I consider to be my goal weight and even when I weighed that goal weight in the past, I wore a size 12.   Further proof that my hard work on this health kick is paying off.  Tight fitting size 18s down to 10.   

To hell with that scale not wanting to budge this week.  I'm in a size 10.  Holla!

Linking up with ktjweighingin!

Non Scale Victory: Farewell, XXL

I like to put laundry off until every article of clothing I own is filthy.  Recently, that led to me pulling an old workout shirt out of the back of my closet.  I wore it to go running and all the extra fabric by my sides was actually annoying me the whole way brushing my arm repeatedly.  Talk about a stupidly distracting issue. So dumb.  And yet, I'm here to report it's annoying.

But when I got home I couldn't resist the smile it put on my face to realize it was an XXL.  I started out wearing that size when I started my health kick back in July at 204.4 pounds.

The cheapskate that lives inside my soul buys my workout gear at Target.  All the same style loose fit Champion for $12.99.  Ever so attractive gray.  It's pretty hot stuff.
  
The XXL hangs off me now.  And that's pretty great.  To celebrate, I'm going to try on a size M next time I'm at Target.

My mind will officially be blown if it fits.  Yeah, for fun days

Linking up with ktjweighingin!

Weigh In: Non scale victories

I haven't done much clothing shopping since starting my health kick and dropping 45 pounds. My closet already contained a variety of sizes so I just periodically shopped through the closet and downsized my pants.   

As my size 14 work slacks started getting baggier, I tried shopping for 12s in my closet.  Everything was either too casual or to hideously outdated.  I can't decide if I just dressed that awful or if it's just been that long since I fit in a size 12.   Neither is a great option.  I stuck with the 14s planning to actually drop some cash on new pants.  I knew it would require some time in the dressing room to try things on and never seemed to find time for it.

Then I found myself in the bathroom at work rolling the waist of my size 14s to keep them from sliding off.  Have you ever tried to act professional and maintain and air of authority while constantly pulling your slacks up.  Well, I have and it's rough going.  Even a belt to cinch the waist just looked ridiculous.  New pants became mission essential.

So I did some time at Kohls and loved that the 12s all fit comfortably.  Not tight.  Not snug.  But a really comfortable and dare I say roomy fit.  That was a very fun day.   A definite non scale victory kind of day.  I didn't even think there was a way to improve on that victory until I put the pants on the next day to get dressed for work and decided to browse my multi-size closet for a shirt that might do something other than hang off of me.  

I located a shirt I happen to know for a fact I wore 10 years ago.  It's insane that I've owned a shirt that long.  It's extra insane that I decided it looked better than half of the over-sized crap in my closet and left the house in it that very day.  It's quadruple insane that I took a photo while wearing it a la the popular #OOTD (Outfit of the Day) hash tag on Instagram.

There should be a special hash tag for fashion train wrecks like me with bland 10 year old crap they're just happy fits and doesn't have sticky fingerprints on it when they get to work.  I like to think of it as #COOTD (Crappy outfit of the day).  Since my recent promotion, I've also periodically thought of it as #CMMOOTD (Crappy middle management outfit of the day).  The difference between the two primarily being the name since I dress just as crappy as I ever have.

But I digress.  So I'm photographing my #CMMOOTD and my pea brain connects the dots that if I wore that shirt 10 years ago, I had to have been wearing it when I was 10 pounds lighter than I am today.  And then it dawned on me that I wore size 12s when I was 10 pounds lighter than I am today.

And that's when I realized I'm clearly in the best shape of my life.

There have been days in my life that I weighed less.  There have been days in my life where I wore sizes smaller than a 12.  There have been days in my life when my stomach was flatter. 

But I have never been as healthy and physically fit as I am today.   Hands down.

And I smiled the whole rest of the day. 

It's been an especially nice non scale victory because I recently hit a bit of a plateau on the scale.  It's only been the last week or two but frustrating when I'm eating healthy and the most exciting thing I've shoveled into my face is hummus.  Hummus.   No, really.  Hummus.  The words "hummus" and "exciting" are rarely used in the same sentence.   And if your scale isn't moving, you should at least get to say you inhaled some McDonald's french fries somewhere along the way.

Non scale victories make weathering plateaus infinitely more doable.  They also make McDonald's french fries seem like stupid things to even think about. They help make it clear that your hard work really is getting you somewhere.

All hail the mighty non scale victories.