THE RED SHIRT

A lot of you know that about 4 years ago, I did WW and lost 50 lbs. It was a HUGE accomplishment for me since I had never been able to lose weight before. I was at my heaviest then - a number that I'm too embarassed to even type out. Unfortunately, I quit the program and gained back about 39 lbs of it. That was also embarassing AND frustrating.

So when I started this time, I was down approx 11 lbs from my original weigh in. So naturally, I keep two tallies in my head:

-TOTAL WEIGHT LOSS *NOW*
-TOTAL WEIGHT LOSS FROM MY ORIGINAL HIGH POINT WEIGHT

Right now, I'm down a total of 9.2 lbs. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't seem like much, but this weekend I was reminded of the real way it's affecting me:

I was out to dinner over the weekend with my friend Kendra. We had some time to kill before we were seated, and I had a coupon to Lane Bryant, so I decided to poke around. I always do well with pants there, but because I'm so busty with a long torso and big belly, the tops are either too small or unflattering.

I found this top in red and brown - both on clearance for $9.99, so I figured I'd just give it a shot and try them on. They fit, but I've been wearing big, loose tops for so long now, I immediately thought it was too tight and form-fitting. Kendra made me show her, and when I came out of the dressing room, she gasped and told me how great the top looked on and that I HAD to buy them.

Once she said that, I took another look in the mirror and realized that this top WAS loose and that it DID look good and fit perfectly. It was like staring at my self-esteem in the mirror. And I always have trouble with their sizes, so I was surprised that only a 9.2 loss would have this fitting so well. But then I remembered, I may be down 9.2 now, but I'm down EXACTLY 20 LBS from when I first started WW a few years ago. And twenty lbs DOES make a difference in how my clothes fit. And it felt DAMN GOOD to realize that my body IS changing and it's ok for me to not wear big, baggy clothes all the time.

So, I wore the brown top with pride to my weigh-in Wednesday. I love how it looks, but I love even more how proud I feel that I'm taking the weight off again and that I'm really making changes physically.

The red one is being saved for a special event - to be worn with a kick-ass skirt and the tall, black boots I just ordered. :)