Like Chipping Away At An Iceberg

On Tuesday, it will be four weeks since I started using Medifast.

I was hoping I'd be able to tell you that I'd lost a full 20 pounds, but I think I'll still be just under that. Still. Nearly 20 pounds is amazing and great and incredible, right?

IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE.

But let me tell you the single most difficult thing about agreeing, finally, to really really do something about my weight.  It is not figuring out what to eat, or being hungry, or managing mood swings, or trying not to drink booze (although that would be the second hardest thing).

The hardest thing is facing exactly how far I have to go.

Once I left the land of the "normal-sized" clothing options and ventured into the plus-sized world, the landscape changed.  I stopped being concerned with which items were the most fashion-forward and became concerned with which items sucked the least.  I abandoned pants with buttons for the comfort of the elastic-waistbanded yoga pant. Long shirts with empire waists became my best friend for dress-up, (assuming I could find any that actually covered my boobs instead of having the girls fall below the waistline).

You know what the problem with these sorts of fashion decisions are? They are very forgiving. Too forgiving. You can gain 5? 10? Maybe even15 or more pounds and not really know it, not really notice it because your stupid comfortable clothes still fit.

I have heard (and seem to remember from my own experience) that, very broadly speaking, you can go up or down in sizes every 10 pounds or so.  I think that might be true when you're talking about the differences in non-plus sizes. 10 pounds can absolutely be the difference between a size 6 and a size 8.  Maybe between a size 8 and a size 10.

But apparently, this is NOT the case with the over size 14s.

I'm almost 20 pounds down and the clothes I own now are NOT falling off of me.  They're fitting better, sure. But they are still fitting.

DO YOU KNOW HOW RUDE THAT IS?

My point is that, at one point in my life, 20 pounds gone would have been a much bigger, much more noticeable difference than it is now. And of course it's still a big deal, and I'm pleased to have made such incredible progress in such a short amount of time, and I know -- believe me, I know -- that you have to start somewhere.

But man. Man oh man.  This just puts it all in perspective.

* * * * * * * * *

Decades. That's what I'm calling each set of 10 pounds.

Like, say I weighed 136 pounds (I do not). That's one decade. The next decade is anything in the 120s. Then the teens, etc.

The good news about these stupid almost-20 pounds I've lost is that I'm already in my third decade. My first numerical goal is to hit that fourth decade. I feel confident that I haven't seen those numbers on the scale since I moved here, and I am pretty sure that by then, my weight loss will be noticeable -- to others and to my friggin' closet.