What Weight Loss is Teaching Me about Patience and Kindness

You know what, team? I completely love you all. I hope you all know how very integral you are to this process. After I posted my picture to Facebook today, I was greeted by a veritable STORM of support. All told, my picture got 65 likes and 22 comments-- considering I only have about 300 facebook friends, that's incredibly impressive of you all. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

On to our topic of the day! I learn a lot from this process, since it basically takes up all of my consciousness, haha!

This is your brain on weight-loss.

The first thing I've learned is about patience. I can thank my guru, Gretchen Rubin, for this, who has pointed out, "the things you do every day are more important than the things you do some of the time."  So I made healthiness something I do every day. If I do healthiness every day, I will lose weight. Period. It's not a question, it's not voodoo, it's not a fad diet-- it's life. If you take one step in the right direction, your path veers in that direction from that day forward, as long as you don't go back to your old path. Every day you step in the right direction takes you further and further from that old path.

This is on my calendar at work right now.

The point is, if you have trust in the process and in yourself, you don't need patience. You need persistence, yes, and strength, but you don't really need patience. I don't need to think about what I'll do when this is all over. I'm more concerned about today and tomorrow. I am a whole, healthier person today. I don't need to be impatient for a Liz that will perhaps never get here. I am me. Investing in my health has, more than anything else I have ever endeavored, helped me to develop something somewhat unknown, which is self kindness.

Or at least I am swirly nephilim eyes and peacock feathers and maybe fish eggs?

People have always told me that my blog is funny. I've always tried for it to be funny, but most of the time it is my own expense. I don't see this as a problem, necessarily, because I always do it lightheartedly, and to lift the tone of what could otherwise be very depressing entries. Self-deprecating humor has its place, and I'm not throwing it out of LGH. I am, however, starting to actually feel-- okay with me. Does this mean I'm going to put on a bikini and flounce around all summer? No. I'll probably spend this summer like every other summer in my life, wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts because that's who I am right now. I just know well enough to love that person, even though she does wear jeans in July.

30.5 Pounds. There's a lot less of me and somehow a lot more of me, and this is only the beginning of the rest of my life. It kind of blows my mind that this is just the beginning of my journey. I'm just glad I'm taking you all with me. :)

So, now you can all pronounce me a sap, and I'll go back to funny pictures and goals and calories. But today, this is what you get. Thank you all for reading. <3

How I Somehow Became Even Less Fashionable

So, there's no way to hide that I've never been a fashionable human. When I was in high school, my very favorite shirt was kind of a froggy green and said "NERD" on it in big letters. It had a rip on the side that I kept closed with a safety pin. This shirt did not fit me particularly well, nor did it look particularly good on me. I LOVED it.

Yeah, that's accurate.

We could go even further back and talk about what I wore in middle school, but there could be children reading my blog and I have no desire to pay for the amount of therapy they might need. I mean, really. Middle school was a time of bad decision making for most of us, and I, about as fashion conscious as a barn owl, probably made it worse than necessary. I remember a particular outfit I used to like-- jeans, an ice-blue fleece sweater (not a zip up, a sweater) and all of the ice-blue makeup I could find, including lip-gloss. MMM middle school in the turn of the century.

I have no idea who who this is, but this is approximately how I thought I looked in 1999.
Spoiler Alert: I did not look a darn thing like this.

I've had a lot of favorite clothing over the years. Most of it, like the nerd shirt, has been basically solid-colored and fairly ill-fitting. The result of getting much much fatter than I'd ever anticipated resulted in an amount of body-shame that even my poorly-dressed low-self-esteem middle school self would be terrified of (Which I am slowly recovering... you know what's neat about kindness? It helps to start with yourself!) Self-kindness aside, my clothing for the past two years ago has taken on a particular trend of baggy and dark-colored that nuns would approve of.

Except, the nuns might have me on the fashionable side.

Anyway, as it's clear I cannot possibly be less fashionable, I was quite startled to find that my clothing had taken on a brand new method of not fitting me and generally making me look like a sillypants. That method was being way too big. Today I wore a dress to work and I swear I spent 300% of the day pulling it up. Not a class act when your job is to teach! Meeps! I have pants but hardly any of them fit-- most of them will stay up (by virtue of still having wide wide hips and owning a belt) but they look kind of like I forgot what year it was and decided elephant pants were cool again. My sweaters fall off my shoulders and hang loose on my arms.

Elephant pants, for your reference :)

I know, team, I know this is completely #weightlossproblems #shutup #gobehealthysomewhereelse.

Right now, oddly, it is one of the biggest struggles in my journey. 11 weeks in, I have some pretty firmly placed habits as far as eating and exercising go. I'm down 26.5 pounds and there's no sign of it stopping.

Here's the problem, I should just be a regular ladyfolk and open up my closet and put on my "skinny" pants. However, at some point in gaining weight, I gave up on myself and donated most of my clothes built for a "thinner" Lizzy (AHhahaha, did you like that music joke?) Now I'm regretting that move as I'm nearing the weight I was in January of 2010, when I needed to reinvest in dress clothing. I have bought myself some new stuff, but if I keep losing at the rate I'm at, nothing is going to stay on me for long.

So it is with a strange mix of pride and apprehension that I shop, do I buy this pair of pants in a size down? I can just just squeeze into them now, is it worth it to get them for later?

Team, I've always been a terrible shopper and a terrible dresser. What do I do? Accept that I'm going to look kind of silly for the next year or so? Is there something that can be done? I can definitely hit up some second-hand and thrift stores to help out, but it turns out most of them don't have a nice stock of plus-size stuff, which is what I definitely still am.

Suggestions? Comments? Do you like elephant pants? Should I just stop whining already?