December 23, 214

This morning I woke up slowly and naturally and the feel of my hands on my shoulders and curves had me thinking again that I would show a loss on the scale, because historically when I feel exotic things on my naked body in bed in the morning, it translates to a scale weight loss. But I was actually up 0.5 pounds from yesterday, to 214, which is still less than the 215 I generally remember myself being when I graduated high school. Which makes sense, anyway, considering that yesterday I got trapped at work all day (unexpectedly) and had restaurant meals for lunch and dinner. Plenty of sodium, if nothing else.

My other jeans have been driving me crazy. Maybe it's just that they need to be washed or they're a little big for their size, but they feel like they're going to fall off. My butt feels like it's completely disappeared in them. They're size 18s, according to the tag.

I just bought a pair of size 16s. They fit my butt great, though I must say my butt is looking much less special than it used to - big, but flat. And my belly fat mounds out over the waistband, which is in danger of rolling down when I sit because of the pressure of my rounded belly fat pushing it down.

So they don't exactly fit, and my figure is messed up and I need to lose more from the waist. But I don't know how to do that - all I can do is just keep losing weight and hope it all evens out eventually.

These jeans are 16W, so technically they're still plus-size. I don't know how I'm going to cope with clothes shopping when I'm not plus-sized anymore! I'm sure we can all identify with what I might mean by that. It'll be so weird, and it might be like a betrayal to my old self, whom I've been my whole life, to suddenly just be able to buy any clothes at any store off any rack and not have to wind my way to the back corner on the bottom level to find a small section of shapeless clown clothes.

I had SUCCESS at the gym today!! On the elliptical, I made it to 433 calories burned in 30 minutes, up from my previous high of 425, but short of my aimed-for goal of 440. But, that's what goals are for, to keep you striving higher. Tangentially, I will note that some guy came up and had a 15-minute conversation with the guy on the trainer next to me and I just got so irritated I wanted to scream, "You guys need to have dinner together please and catch up on old times! Don't *you* have some working out to do? Hasn't *your* timer run out yet???" Anything to make them shut up and get away from me.

Then I went and lifted weights and had more success with increased upper body strength, glad to say. Possibly the weight-lifting has been partially responsible for my ability to feel changes this morning in bed that didn't show on the scale this morning. May the weight-lifting continue to change my shape, I hope.

I wonder if anyone in the locker room thought I was oddly self-involved, watching myself in the mirror as I change clothes, and afterward, just looking at my face for a moment to see if there was any difference. I feel like I feel a change in my jaw, but I can't be sure in the mirror - I still have cheeks and some double-chin, and probably that will never go away again. But I do think my face looks different. I just can't point out where or how.

Well, I guess that's enough lounging for now. Let's see if I can't get some cleaning done. I'm not sure when it all got so out-of-control, the state of my things all over the place, but the house cleaning is relentless and I never seem to get any progress made on it. And I'm having family over on Christmas. Just the intimate family, though.