Week 46, 173 lbs.

 

A funny photo of me from the family camp out, eating a smore and drinking wine!I should have
stopped with that one indulgence!  It has been YEARS since I've been able to
wear that sweatshirt - and it's never been big on me before!!


 Three days of unrestricted, fat-laden eating and alcohol consumption this past weekend at the family campout not only put pounds on my frame (I was able to take a few off before weigh-in), it also bumped my fat ratio up an entire percentage point!  Even though I spent a lot of time exercising to "balance" out the indulgences - the food free-for-all left its mark on me and I have to face the facts. 

If I want to keep the beautiful new shape I discovered hiding under layers of fat, I can never, ever go back to my old way of eating.  You think I would have learned that by now, but I'm one of those people who have to test boundaries a few times before reality sinks in.

Not only did my weight and fat ratio increase, my skin looks like crap.  I have broken out in little pimples all along my forehead and jaw line.  I have fought acne most of my life and one of the first things people commented on when I went on this diet was how nice my skin looked.

Clean eating cleared up my life-long acne problem!  And there are a lot of health issues I don't want to revisit in the future.... so its time I got real, stopped playing with boundaries to see what I can get away with and focus on finishing phase one of Ideal Protein. Seriously, I've been in the 170s long enough!

I am not going to beat myself up over one weekend's worth of indulgence.  This is a learning experience and I didn't lose that much ground.  The experience did prove to me how important my food choices are going to be for the rest of my life ... and how important it is to keep my body moving.  Just think how much ground I would have lost if I hadn't gone on those mega bike rides and the hike!!

So today I am back on track, and the scale at home already shows a smaller number than it did yesterday. 

And maybe this is a petty motivator, but next month I'll be attending an event where I will be crossing paths with a former friend of mine and I want to look as good as possible.

In the past I used to have a number of friends I referred to as "Divas."  They were self-centered women who kept me around because I was good for their egos.  As long as they had me, a clumsy, obese sidekick with a low self-esteem, they felt good about themselves.  For a long time I attracted this type of friendship, often cast in the role of "pretty girl's fat friend."

This one friend in particular often said unkind things about the way I looked and ran me down  every chance she got in the name of friendship.  If I showed up in a new outfit I was proud of, she took on a tone of severe disapproval and ruthlessly pointed out the flaws in my body and why I shouldn't wear that outfit.  The weird thing about this friend's criticism is that she outweighed me by at least 50 lbs!!

She felt it was her duty to be "brutally honest" with me in order to help me improve myself.  She also played all kinds of mind games with me and our mutual friends and as a result I ended up in some bizarre situations that brought a lot of unwelcome drama into my life.

She was the last in a long line of Diva (yes, with a capital D) friends, and probably the worst of the lot.  One day about two years ago (when I really started working on my own self image) I realized that I was not very smart in allowing her to create the chaos in my life and how truly bad for me her friendship was. So the next time she started playing games with me,  I stood up to her, told her I would always care about her, wished her well and still considered her a friend, but that I was not going to allow her to use or insult me anymore.  I talked to her in a loving but firm tone, hoping (for some crazy reason) that we could maintain some kind of friendship but on different terms.
 
She ended our friendship, cutting off all contact on that day.

Even though I am on this diet solely for myself and not to look good for anyone else, it is going to be extremely gratifying to look this woman in the eye, say hello to her, and watch her face when she realizes who I am.  People who haven't seen me in just a few months aren't recognizing me....  a person who hasn't seen me in years and who never valued me in the first place is definitely not going to recognize me.

I guess I will find out if living well really is the best revenge.  I'm not sure why it's important to me to face her, I guess it's some kind of closure.  And once I am done saying hello to my former friend, I can return to having fun with the friends who have loved me regardless of my size or self-esteem issues and never dwell on her again.

Who knows!  Maybe my transformation will inspire her to get healthy, too!