Well, whaddya know… you can go on vacation, eat a chocolate souffle, and drink a glass of wine and still lose 0.4 lbs, for a total loss of 103.8! DH also lost 0.4, so that must have been the magic number for this trip.
We certainly didn’t diet (that chocolate souffle was very good!) but we didn’t go crazy, either. Well, I TRIED to go crazy with that burger, but my body doesn’t do crazy anymore, apparently.
Speaking of magic numbers, there’s a lot of those going around this week. These numbers are magic because they magically derail success, or put it on pause anyway. They’re magic because of the power we give them.
My thinking on this started with reading Katherine’s blog Weight for 160, where she wrote she was stuck hovering around the 200 mark (she succeeded this week!). And then, the weird way things work, someone in my meeting discussed how she was stuck after having lost 20 lbs.
My magic number is 100. I’ve lost 100 lbs, and I’ve had the damndest time making any serious dent in it since. It is a scary number, and it represents a scary place. My weight loss has gotten to the point where my mom admits she sometimes doesn’t recognize me. Heck, I saw my two kids in the mirror at a store the other day, and it was a moment before I realized the person holding their hands was me!
Part of my reluctance is due to this disorientation I’m feeling with having made such an enormous change, and I’m giving myself time to sort that out. But part is also resentment: what, 100 lbs isn’t enough?!? It feels like enough for me right now! I can do everything I ever dreamed about, and lots of things I never considered. So who is this BMI who says I need to lose more? And why is my Dr happy, but thinking I can get down further?
I’m also a little afraid; I’ve made so many changes in my life; how many more changes will I have to make? Will my life be unrecognizable? Will I?
There’s nothing in the number 100 in and of itself that is magic; if I was anyone else in the world, it would be 45 odd kilos, and it’d be 50 kilos lost that would no doubt be my magic sticky number.
So maybe instead of thinking of my goal in lbs I’ll think about it in kilos. Once I’ve lost 50 kilos I’ll be down 110, and only 20 lbs or so away from the magic number dictated by BMI.
I have completely unrelated pictures! Here’s one of me in the tank top I was so scared to wear to my workout:
That’s Sam trying to feel my muscles. Here’s the photographer, Nate, who took the picture:
He’s got a good eye! He must have gotten it from his photojournalist daddy, who was otherwise occupied painting:
He’s so handy!
So what’s your magic number? What did you do to turn it back into a regular ol’ number!
