From Cocoon to butterfly

I did it! The last dress challange has been met and defeated! Yeah. Ok, most of us are women and if you are anything like me, you have all kinds of sizes in your closet. IN fact, before losing weight, just in underwear, I had size 9, 8,7,6, and 5. My husband doens’t know what to do about me heheh. Bras, shirts, skirts, they are allt he same way. Well, one of my goals to myself was to be able to wear all my clothes down to the smallest one in my closet. I have gradually gotten down and tried on the clothes and packed away the big clothes (yes, I should throw them out but give me time to overcome my fear) and I am even down to where I can put on my size 5 underwear. Bra is a 34 so I can get into everything BUT there was one dress. It just did not fit right for awhile. But today, I decided, ok, let’s try it on again and see how it fits. Well, I unzipped the size, pulled it on and ,…. guess what, yes, it fit. I actually got into my smallest size clothes and now there are no smaller clothes to get into!  Yes, it presents a problem that now all the clothes will get bigger and bigger because I still have 32 more pounds to lose but that is a great problem! Much better then the one I had previously of all the clothes getting too small because I was up into a size 28! But I can put on all the clothes now and I am so hyped about that. It was something I thought I would never be able to do. They have been sitting in that closet for so many years but I could get them all on and the last dress was my hurdle. I am also now slowly getting my mind around how to live at goal because in a few months, I will be at goal and I need to know how to handle it. I caught myself thinking of how to eat the breakfast this morning as if I was at goal. I thought about portion size, how to make it and all that and I came up with a successful answer. It gives me hope that I can and will do this and NOT gain back the weight. I think the biggest thing I have to learn is portion control. My weight gain was not the product of what I ate because obviously, you can eat bread and stuff without gaining but the big problem was HOW much I ate. This is what I have to learn to control my portion size. So, my next task to myself is to learn portion. I do not plan to go off plan or stop but what I want to do is look at the food around me and think , ok, would this be healthy for me? Could I eat this at goal and not trigger myself? How much is a reasonable amount to eat? Meaning, what would a normal weight person eat of this? How can I make it healthier for me to eat? I feel that we should not plan how to eat when at goal once we get to goal. It takes a lot of thinking and planning to get our minds wrapped aroudn the thought of how to maintain. So, I am beginning a little early, not too early but enough I can start to see a vague picture of what I want and how I will do it gradually emerge from the shadows.

My husband reminded me today about how I went to the US (when we were engaged) and still lost weight while eating the same foods everyone was eating. He asked me how I did that. I thought back and you know what, it is true. I was on vacation and I ate what everyone else was eating, even desert but the thing I did different was how much I ate. When my mother gave me the pie, I told her a small piece and then I only ate a few bites and left the rest. When I ate supper, I ate about half of it and left the other half and was satisfied . Doing this, Iw as able to lose weight. So, it is how much we eat, portion size. So, now, I am thinking of things and how much to eat of them. There are a few things I will avoid. Like, I think it is better to avoid ice cream. Love it too much and besides, have trouble with lactose so why hurt myself. Why not just buy a popsicle, fruit kind. They are healthy for me and sweet. Why buy danishes. They are full of sugar, bad fat and refined carbs. Nothing of it is good for you. What about a whole grain bagel with a little bit of fruit cream cheese. Sweet, satisfying and still healthy. This is what I am doing now. I am thinking along these lines. Dumplings, love them. So, order all veggie ones and only order one order. One order is about 6. I use to order at least four orders and eat them all. So, only do one order, that is normal portion. Then , eat about five and stay with that. I can do this. Just takes thinking and planning.

So, keep your chins up, you can do it!