Finally hitting my 100 pound step, last week, switched on something on in my brain — something I didn’t expect.

102 pound shrimp!

When I crossed that 100 pound mark, and I sat down to take my latest measurements, I was still in the “nice number, let’s keep going” mindset. (I still am.) But then I decided to make an animated GIF of the profile photos I’ve had since starting my journey. I did it for me. Sometimes, looking from the inside out, my mental picture of myself doesn’t jive with the actual changes taking place; there’s a lag.

I take a new profile pic roughly every twenty pounds; I took a new one at 100, but honestly, I didn’t really think there were evident changes from the last pic. I was wrong. I shocked myself. I’ve reached a point in my weight loss when changes become evident more quickly because a twenty pound loss now is a larger percentage of my total body weight than it was, before. If a couple weeks go by between visits with a friend, they mention changes I don’t see.

Yep, that’s my incredible shrinking face.

I know, from previous experience, that my toughest mental times are ahead; they have arrived. My biggest challenge isn’t in actually losing the weight; it’s in learning how to live — and be comfortable — in my own skin. I’ve hid behind fat; being fat makes me invisible in many ways. It’s amazingly easy for me to dissolve into the shadows, and although I know I come across as a vocal person online, I am quite introverted in real life — I’m more than happy to be the quiet one in the corner.

This is the point I have been preparing for; that turning point where I must force my brain to evolve with my body. Anyone who has been at various weight points in their life knows this truth: people do treat you differently, depending on your weight and their perceptions of you. Sometimes, it’s subtle; a friend who’s suddenly willing to hug you when they didn’t, before, or getting waited on the moment you walk into a store.

Sometimes, it’s blatant. Years ago, when I lost 140 pounds, a friend of mine complimented me on how good I was doing. Her husband piped up and said he liked me better, now that I wasn’t fat, because I wasn’t ugly anymore. I was shocked. (I assure you, his wife unloaded a few choice words in his direction!)

Regardless, my mental issues before weren’t with what I was able to do with my improved body strength and abilities; it was with the changes in how I was perceived. While some might find the last example outrageous (and yes, I did, too), it’s no different than what any number of people might be thinking without verbalizing it. Perception changes how we treat others. Although my circle of friends and my surroundings had not changed, I was living in an alien world that I was uncomfortable with.

This is why I have purposely constructed this mental fortress to deal with these changes as they happen, instead of being shocked into the frightening dissonance I witnessed, before. I know what that dissonance is, now, and I choose to resolve it by learning how to live this new life in increments, rather than sliding back into a familiar comfort zone where I can disappear.

The hardest work — and the best rewards — are still in front of me.

The last month has been one long lesson on staying in the moment — something I apparently have yet to learn. I now stand at 99.2 pounds down; a breath away from a major goal.

Being on a long term weight loss journey requires focus on two things: the end goal, and what’s happening right now. Focusing on the end goal alone, can be defeating; it’s one thing to tell yourself that you’ll drop a few pounds before summer, but quite another to tell yourself you’ll drop a couple hundred pounds over the course of… well… years.

Guinness Book World Record holder for building the worlds largest working revolver. The revolver is a scaled up Remington model 1859, that is 28mm in caliber. The gun weighs 99 pounds and is said to be accurate at 50 feet. I’m a lot more accurate than that!

Looking that far down the road makes the final goal seem unachievable, at times, especially if it’s a goal that has never been achieved, before. (In my own personal experience; I’m well aware others have done it.) I also make the mistake of thinking “when I’m at goal, I’ll do *insert list of marvelous things*.” It’s a distant promise of awesomeness, complete with daydreams of the things I’ll be able to enjoy when I will no longer have to deal with the weight issues I currently (still) have.

It’s great to have those long term goals, to want to be active, to know there are things I can achieve at a later point in my life. But I also have to live in this moment, with the reassurance that I’ve already achieved many positive things. I have to rid myself of the relentless murmurs that take over my head when I haven’t met short term goals; inevitably, there are reasons I don’t meet my goals. I know this on a logical level. But it’s at times like these when that voice in my head — my “Inner Walt” — starts nagging me with that underlying feeling of not good enough.

I’ve been teetering on the edge of making a major goal, and my brain wants that goal bad — to the point that I’ve obsessed about it, and believe me, I’m fully capable of over-obsessing. Regardless, that didn’t stop me from enjoying some holiday treats I wouldn’t have, otherwise; it’s a Catch-22. I can hardly be disappointed I haven’t reached my goal, yet, if I willingly compromised that goal by making food decisions that would likely delay it. That’s what logic says, anyway, and I need to push my logical brain to be more in charge.

This is why short-term goals are important. Granted, I’ve been dealing with a 1.4-pound goal for a month; it’s hard to get more short term than that! I want that 100 pounds for the sake of being able to say I’m 100 pounds down, and yet, here I sit at a new low of 99.2 — .8 away from that lingering goal. Nothing magical happens the morning I step on that scale and see that number; it’s one more landmark along the way. My husband asked me what reward I want once I pass that goal; my answer was (and is) “nothing”. Having met the goal is reward in itself. My brain will enjoy it for a bit… and then I’ll need to decide on my next short term goal.

Regardless of these goals, I need to be more conscious of where I am at any given moment in this journey; I’ve had people congratulating me for being 98 (.6!) pounds down, but inside, my brain has been silently (and scornfully) answering “but it’s not the 100 pound goal I wanted”. I have to be careful about getting out of the bratty side of my brain; when I took my first step on this journey a couple years ago, I would have been thrilled to know I’d reach this point.

In this very moment, I’m enjoying things I haven’t been able to do for a long time. Simple things, like standing in the kitchen and cleaning for 15 minutes without my knees screaming in pain. I can cross my legs; not gracefully, but that will come. I’ve got so many clothes I can wear, now, that I really should thin them out so I know what I’ve got. When I drive our SUV, I have to move the rear-view mirror to see out the back window because my butt-height has decreased; I don’t sit as tall as I used to. I’ve had to completely reset the seat in my car, because I got in one day and it felt too far away from the pedals; I’m the sole driver of that vehicle. (Not to mention, there’s a lot more room between my gut and the steering wheel, regardless of what I’m driving.)

These are the things I need to embrace; no, I can’t get out and walk miles like I used to, or squat my body weight, but I’m doing things that were previously impossible to do. Every step along the way is important.

98.6 pounds down! That’s right — the average body temperature.

I will absolutely admit that I’d really hoped to be 100 pounds down at the end of this week, but I have to remind myself of a couple of important matters.

First — every pound — heck, every ounce I lose matters. Every loss gets me closer to my goal. Being disappointed to be at 98.6 pounds down instead of 100 pounds down is like being upset someone gave me $98,600 instead of $100,000! That’s crazy. This weight loss is a true gift, and I need to appreciate every step along the way.

Miley Cyrus at 98 pounds. Who can’t stand to lose Miley?

It’s not that I don’t… but I have a competitive nature that comes out around goals. I am confident I will still reach my goal and surpass it; I’m not far from it, after all, and there are still almost two weeks left in the year to lose 1.4 pounds.

The second, and perhaps more important: while giving out a number is a great indicator of success, it’s certainly not the only indicator. I’m at a point in my weight loss where just about everything has changed, and there are indicators everywhere of success without ever looking at the number on the scale.

Last week, I talked about the frustration of having injured my knee; this week, it feels like that never happened, and earlier this week, I had a really great day — one of those days where I was absolutely happy and thankful for having taken the first initial step to lose weight. I had a business meeting and then time with a friend, then some time out with my husband.

It was a long day! And a busy one. What made it so much easier and so much more enjoyable for me was that I felt good and didn’t worry. I tend to worry a lot, especially about mobility; when my knee hurt so badly, I canceled out of going to a movie with my husband, because of fear of pain during the movie, as well as being able to walk to and from the theater (inside the movie complex). This Tuesday, I went out to a movie with a friend and had absolutely no problems or concerns with the same situation. (Bonus: comfy with extra room in the seat!)

One of the funnier things about the day: since I work from home, I don’t often worry about dressing up — but I had a business meeting to attend, and it suddenly hit me the day before that I had no clothes that would be considered appropriate business attire. Everything was too big, and since I’ve been trying to reuse my old clothing as much as I can while moving down in size, I was at a loss. Good thing the office I visited is casual; I ended up finding something that would work, and the fun part of it was wearing a top (and boots) that I haven’t been able to wear for a couple of years — because I outgrew both. The black jeans I wore are bordering on being too big.

It’s been a shock to me to pull out clothing that I imagine is still going to be too small, and it fits! I’ve had to say goodbye to some clothing that’s simply too big to be serviceable, now — and looking back on it, there’s very little I wear, these days, that I wore regularly at 98.6 pounds heavier. (And I think people truly start to notice weight loss when you start wearing different clothing.)

It’s a fun thing to do; shopping in your own closet and drawers, finding things that fit, that you already love, and you don’t have to pay for — because you already own them. 🙂 Wearing those smaller things is also a concrete indicator of progress.

Hips don’t lie — especially when you can fit them in smaller jeans. 😉

I’m always thrilled to see a new, lower number on the scale! I’m 96.8 pounds down, now, and just 3.2 more pounds until I meet my end-of-year goal of 100 pounds. Realistically, that’s the equivalent of a squirrel’s weight!

And none too soon, either. I had an experience last weekend that left me worried.

Thank goodness — I’ve lost Snooki! I can’t help but think that’s a good thing!

While I’ve seen improvement in nearly every physical way, my biggest health concern is my knees. I have severe arthritis in both; much more severe in my right knee. The damage in that knee is bad enough that the joint has degraded and become misaligned. I was told at least six years ago, probably longer, that I’d need total knee replacement surgery; likely on both knees, eventually, because of the brutal combination of osteoarthritis and extreme weight.

I’ve done a lot of things to delay the inevitable, from arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs (and trim a torn meniscus), orthovisc injections in both knees to replace synovial fluid (and provide a cushion to my knees), to custom-made braces to help correct the misalignment issue and powerful NSAIDs to reduce pain and inflammation.

Without a doubt, the absolute best thing I have done for my knees is to lose weight. Although I still cannot stand for long or walk extended distances, losing weight has reduced the amount of chronic pain I deal with. It really does help to “take a load off”! Whodathunkit?!

That was… until last weekend, when I finally realized that the pain I was experiencing wasn’t the normal fluctuation of good/bad days that you deal with when you have arthritis. No, the pain was excruciating enough to restrict my movement to a point where I feared I’d need to visit my knee doc. And I know what he’d suggest, because his staff has been telling me every time I go in that I need to (a) lose the weight and (b) get that nifty new knee. Clearly, I’ve done one of the two.

The level of pain scared me. I have known for a long time that if I continued down the course I was headed, I would reach a point where I wouldn’t be able to function at all — and I was in no shape to have major surgery; the risk factors for the morbidly obese are a concern, as well as recovery. I have worked hard to get the weight off, and my goal is to get as much of as I can — a minimum of 60 more pounds, at the very least — before I consider surgery. I have planned how I want to approach this, and I feared that choice was about to be taken away from me.

The good news is that after a few days of nursing the knee to reduce inflammation and treating it more like an injury instead of standard arthritis, my knee feels as good as it did before it was injured. (I’m not sure what I did to injure it; the pain was different, but I assumed it was an arthritis flare-up.)

In addition to this, I’ve needed the reminder that I need to stay focused on doing everything I can for my body; not just for me, but for others, as well. Getting healthy is a gift; not just to myself but to people I love and care for, because they are affected when I am not doing well. I’m fortunate to have a large support group of friends and family who are pulling for me, and I owe it to them to keep my head in the game and keep pushing as hard as I can toward my real goal: gaining health.

I know it’s against the odds, but I plan to turn that upside down.

I’ve done it — I’ve lost 25% of my original starting weight. 1/4th of me has gone missing. 93 pounds GONE!

Think of it. One FOURTH of my body is no longer here. I still have all of my body parts; nothing has suddenly gone missing. There’s just less of me.  A lot less.

One fourth of a cake, GONE.

I’ve lost mostly fat and some muscle along the way. After all, it takes a fair amount of muscle to move someone of my weight, even presently; as that fat goes away, so does a little bit of muscle. Some of the changes I’ve experienced follow — and I expect these to be amplified as I continue.

The effort to pick up that weight and move it is much less, and that alone has made me healthier. I walk farther. I stand longer. I have more energy and stamina. My knees thank me every day because they don’t scream at me the way they used to. I don’t wobble (quite as much) when I walk. I don’t have as much pain from arthritis — both because the weight my body has to bear is less, and my body isn’t as wildly out of proportion as it was.

All the good doctor’s reports go along with it; my blood tests are stellar, my doctor seems pleased. There’s still a bit of room for improvement, but as you’d expect, the effects of losing weight increase proportionally to the amount lost.

As for my size, I’m starting to see the more pronounced effects of large-scale weight loss. Sure, there’s the changes in clothing size, but my rings and my shoes are looser. I expect that my shoe size will decrease as I continue to lose; not in width, but in length. (This has happened before.) Morbid obesity presses the foot flat, and I normally have a high arch; as the weight decreases, the arch increases and my shoe size changes.

It’s easier to drive our vehicles. There’s a lot more room between my gut and the steering wheel. I’m also finding I have to adjust the rear view mirror a bit because having a substantial posterior not only made me taller in the seat, but pushed me out from the seat so I’ve had to move the seat position up slightly.

Theater seats? Comfy, now. Airplane seats? I don’t know about those — it’ll be a while before I fly, again, but by the time I do, I’m sure I won’t have to live through the embarrassment of having to ask for a seatbelt extender.

It’s nice to see my feet, again. There are fewer body parts blocking the view! (Well… a couple of them, but they’re deflating.)

To be totally honest, there are a few downsides; I have excess skin and I expect this to be even more of an issue as I continue to lose weight. When I lost a great deal of weight years ago, I had a great amount of excess skin; I expect to have even more. These does mess with your brain; the state of my excess skin really bothered me after 140 pounds of loss. This time, I’m a bit more mentally prepared to deal with it.

Just to be clear — that’s what I’d call a “quality issue”; it’s a problem, yes, but a good problem to have. I’d much rather lose the excess weight and free my body than worry about sagging excess skin; it’s a battle scar of sorts, and I will learn to live with it as my body continues to change.

This is also my preliminary halfway point in losing weight, so it’s a major goal to accomplish. I hope, at a minimum, to lose 50% of my total starting weight.

I’ll be half of who I used to be, but I’m saving the good parts.

As of this moment, I am 90.8 pounds down. Pretty amazing!

I recently read an article titled 10 Tips for Losing 100 Pounds or More on WebMD. In all, the article offered some decent, solid advice, and I’ve done many of the tips. Some time to look at an article on how to lose 100 pounds or more when I’m 90 pounds into it, right? Anyway… #8, Ditch The Dieting Mindset, resounded with me.

91 pounds of babies. Hey, I’m only .2 away from this…

This is something I’ve slowly been coming to terms with as I near a halfway point and continue to evolve in my weight loss. It’s especially true, now, with the holidays looming in the near future, and photos of delicious holiday treats parading through my social media accounts.

When it comes to weight loss, I tend to live in the future; I look forward to future weight loss goals. I have a drawer of clothes that are slightly too small, and I try them on every once in a while to see if they fit, yet. I think of what I’ll be able to accomplish at various points of loss, and I have thoughts of what life will be like when I’m able to do things I’m currently unable to do. As I travel in reverse through my smaller waves of clothes, I laughingly wonder if the seasons will line up; and right now, they don’t. I have cute clothes I bought for vacation in July of 2012; they fit now… in November. Such is life.

There will come a day when I’ve reached my weight loss goal, whatever I decide that will be, but I’ve come to accept that the process will never be over. There will not come a day when I wake up and regain the ability to eat without consequence. I could do that when I was 16; not now, in my 50’s. So the morning I wake up and I have achieved those goals is also the morning I start on another journey: maintaining what I’ve accomplished, perfecting the process, learning to live in my changed body.

While I know there are many people, especially heading into the holiday season, that tell themselves it’s time to make (yet another!) New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, and get on a diet (after the holidays, of course!) and immediately think of the day they will go off the diet — there is no such thing for me. Accepting that the only way to make my goals is to accept that I am not on a diet is sometimes hard to wrap my mind around, because to me, “diet” means “temporary”. I’ve had to break out of the mindset that weight loss is a process with a definite ending; it’s simply not true. It’s a lifetime commitment.

I’ve been on this journey for well over two years, now. Ain’t nuthin’ temporary about this!

Generally, I try to find the positive aspects of this process, and many may not consider this a positive at all, but I do. So many of us learn to live with restrictions; understanding that your body requires and reacts with nutrition in certain ways is simply learning to live with a restriction. It’s compromise, in the same way putting contact lenses in my eyes is a compromise taken on in order to see well. (If only losing weight were as easy!)

In the larger order of things, I would choose to live with this restriction and this understanding than others. Walking away from it means willingly choosing the high risk of diabetes, of heart disease, of further arthritic degeneration, and other complications of morbid obesity.

I choose this path — and willingly.

It’s been another great week for losses, with 88.2 pounds gone, and I’m happy to report that I’m closing in on a couple of goals that truly put this journey in a whole new light for me. Not that my weight loss efforts haven’t been legitimate, before, but the two goals that are soon within my grasp seem to shine a whole new light on this transition into the next stage of my life.

88 pound sea turtle

A little less than 5 more pounds gone, and I will have lost 25% of my total body weight, at 93 pounds. And when I’ve lost 11.8 more pounds, I will cross into that triple digit territory of having lost 100 pounds. Considering how close I am to both of these goals, I have to admit that every time I think about it, I am both excited and absolutely stunned.

Yep, those are big numbers. Not big enough, yet, to put my body weight in “normal” territory, but huge numbers, nonetheless.

It’s the accumulation of small changes that have made the difference. Changing a ton of things that needed to eventually happen, right off the bat, has driven me off of more diets than I care to admit. Starting out with smaller steps has led to making larger steps much easier.

Anyone who’s ever had a water leak can tell you that slow drip that doesn’t seem like anything to worry about ends up costing you on the water bill. Anyone who watched the Kansas City Royals win the World Series knows that they did it without a single home run over the fence; they won with singles, doubles, steals. The small things matter a lot; it’s not so important that you jump into doing everything at once, but that you start your effort with small changes.

Years ago, I was an avid walker; I walked roughly four miles a day. On every day’s walk, I’d pick up a piece of gravel along my path. When I arrived home, I dropped the rock I’d picked up into a hole that needed filling in my driveway. And while the differences on a day to day basis probably didn’t look like much at all, I eventually filled that hole.

I keep adding small things to my repertoire as I progress with my weight loss; as I become more capable. I find that everything I can successfully add or alter manages to change my life in slight but important ways. My latest challenge has been to intentionally use my cane less and less. I have it with me at all times, still; there are simply times when my knees are unsteady or I have a hill to tackle that requires some assistance. Falling is dangerous for me, so training my body to be steady on my feet is a slow but important process.

While I still feel I walk a little bit like a drunk when I don’t have my cane, I don’t feel like I must have it when I’m walking — most of the time. And honestly, the more weight I lose, the easier it will be for my body to maintain my balance; my gait is changing. So is my posture and the way I carry myself. Losing a large percentage of body weight necessarily means shifts in your center of gravity.

On a slightly different note, I went to the doctor’s office for a standard 6 month checkup earlier this week. I didn’t flinch when I stepped on the scales. I always fear blood draws, because I have deep veins that like to hide; believe me, I’ve gone through traumatic times when I’ve spent over an hour with attempted blood draws, to the point of feeling like I’d pass out. This time? The first attempt was successful.

And the best part? I didn’t cry during my appointment. I’m sure my doctor is happy about that, too; I’ve kidded him that he’s probably recorded “90% chance of blubbering” in my chart. I usually cry out of anger or frustration, and going back through my medical charts, they’ve seen my weight wildly fluctuate for years — this is certainly no new problem. So for me to stand there proudly, smiling during a doctor’s checkup and not shed a tear? Huge. My lab reports aren’t back, yet, but I’m not expecting anything but good news.

Make a small change; it makes a big difference in the long run.