Months ago, I set a date of June 6, in hopes I would have passed some important markers: losing 200 pounds, finally no longer being considered obese by BMI. I chose June 6 because I had a lot of busy, celebratory stuff going on, and I had hoped that I’d start the summer off with a bang.

That didn’t happen. In fact, my weight loss over the last year has been negligible. I have been in such a mindset of moving toward loss that I admit, even knowing this would be a slow year for me, I’ve fought a sense of not doing enough.

Realistically, though, I have gone through two major surgeries that restricted movement, and because of necessary changes to diet, exercise, and focus, I knew I would be dealing with weight fluctuations. I have yet to get back down to my lowest weight; I have hovered around 10 pounds over that weight.

And yet — I keep running into people who swear I’m still losing weight and adamantly say so. In the name of transparency, I tell them the truth, even if it’s not really anyone else’s business. I’ve also noticed, though, that clothes that were snug several months back when I was 10-12 pounds above my low, now fit as if I’m not carrying that extra weight. I’m smaller, even if the number on the scale isn’t.

That’s the part that’s easy to forget; my body is still changing, despite weight fluctuations. I’ve been dedicating myself to walking on a consistent basis, pushing forward, changing my intensity and duration, and that has been paying off. My clothes fit better, and tall boots I bought just last fall can now zip all the way up; they hit me just below the knee, and although I’ll likely always wear wide leg boots, the last time I recall being able to wear boots like this was in my 20’s.

The small stuff is sometimes all I see; the minor differences in weight loss, the day to day things that don’t even seem noticeable. I get angry with myself for not meeting my goals, for not moving the marker. For the occasional bumps in the road that mean a few extra pounds that I don’t like seeing drift up, even if most people who have never been morbidly obese deal with exactly the same thing.

It’s easy to get lost in the details and not see all of the progress until something reminds me that I’m wrong about that. The scale is only one sole indicator, after all.

Many years ago, I was a knitwear designer. I could create a sweater from the bottom up (literally!); I started with a general idea of what I wanted the style to be, what features would look best with that style, and then I got down to the details: the ply of the yarn, the color(s) chosen, the experimentation of gauge and needle size, the math calculations involved in how much a design might change that basic gauge. I would start with the inkling of an idea, and then work on the pieces; to the unpracticed eye, much of what I did looked like a heap of yarn before it gradually took shape.

I swear, the end process, even though it paled in the amount of time required for the rest of the sweater construction, would seem like forever. Picking up stitches to complete a neck treatment, sewing the seams, tucking in the loose ends, finishing any other details such as buttons — until finally, I could smooth out the final item in its completion, fully recognizable and in its final form.

The closer I get to the final shape of my body, the more I have to remember that I’m in those finishing stages; I’m working on the final touches of my soon-to-be-completed project, where I get to wear this body for the rest of my life and enjoy the hard work I’ve put in.

Patience will pay off. My time will come; all the work I’ve put in is taking shape, even though it might not seem that way when I’m picking away at the details.

(PS: not me in the video.)

Sometimes, events come up that remind me that while my biggest obligation for health is to myself, that I made promises to people I love and that I mean to keep.

This week, my oldest brother is very much on my mind. He passed away after a ten-year battle with prostate cancer in 2015. We shared a love of music that ran deep; he was a horn player long before I was old enough to make a choice for myself, and while the brother between us picked cornet, I begrudgingly followed Greg as a horn player. Hey, we already owned the horn I would use to learn, and my mother was nothing if not a pragmatist, but I fell deeply in love with it.

Later in life, we also shared a love of all things tropical. Greg had a side gig playing trop-rock music in the Chicago area; he was a one-man band and mixed in his own original tunes. Although he was a musician for a lot of years before cancer changed his world, he played his music as long as he was capable. After his diagnosis, he sometimes used his music as his own personal therapy — and by extension, those of us around him.

There have been moments in my life when someone has left me far too soon. Among them was my father’s death; I admit that there’s part of me that wishes he could see me, now — far more self-confident and self-assured than he ever would have preferred. I suppose even thirty years after his death, I feel that defiance as a motivator; be all the things he scorned in women.

But Greg? Well, we shared our love for trop-rock and horn music, and at least he knew I was a good year and a half into my journey toward better health when he died. I became an official Parrothead the same fall I committed to losing weight and regaining my health, so we shared that, too, as well as all the familial things we needed to resolve as adults.

So as I head into our Buffett Week here, Greg is on my mind; I have carried him with me as I’ve traveled to places he wanted to go or had been himself. I think of him every time I pick up my horn, and especially when I perform. And, as our local Parrothead club works a large pre-concert and then a tailgate before the Jimmy Buffett concert, you better believe that he’ll be with me, probably laughing at the silliness, the forever-summer attitudes, the never-grow-up devotion that seems unique to these folks I’ve grown to love like family.

It’s about time that I have come to the point where I feel comfortable in my own skin; time to not feel like a stranger in my own life.

It’s about time.

Stress. It’s a powerful thing if we let it be, and it affects us in lots of different ways.

You would probably expect me to say I’m a stress eater, but I’m more likely to deal with stress in other ways; grinding teeth, tight muscles, anxiousness, inability to sit still. Luckily, for me, it’s rare that I want to shove food in my face in hopes of making a stressful situation better.

In my case, my current stress is people. By inclination, I’m an introvert; a behind-the-scenes person. Too much peopling, and I want to go hide in a dark, quiet room, curled up like a cat, and hide from the world. But I can’t. So I’ve been dealing with tight muscles, headaches, and a desire to eat coffee grounds with a spoon, straight out of the bag.

And I confess — one of the things I really felt like doing, today, was to find me some comfort food and say to hell with it. Involving fruity adult beverages wouldn’t have been objected to, either. Salt on the rim, please.

I know, though, that none of that makes the stress go away; the only thing that does is facing whatever it is, head on, and accepting that it’s not going to kill me. This, too, shall pass, and I’ll be back to being able to live in my introvert’s mode of choice in a few days’ time.

This girl who would rather hide when there’s more than 20 people, around, will be dealing with a crowd of possibly 30,000 people at a Jimmy Buffett tailgate this Thursday. I will switch myself into deal with it mode, smile, be nice, not kill people, and then, hopefully, enjoy the company of those I know and like, as well as a fruity adult beverage or ten.

I might be exaggerating a bit, there. About the people I know and like, that is.

(Kidding. Sort of.)

I have been squelching the desire to make things worse by shoving food in my mouth. Instead, I’ve gone outside and walked it off. And that works — with zero regrets, and no need to feel bad about it afterward. It kills the desire to smack people and makes me generally non-homicidal. And there’s that endorphin thing, too.

In short, I have goals I want to accomplish, and stress is not going to derail me. Facing stress is the best stress relief there is.

Last Friday, I was heading out of town to celebrate a long weekend for our 36th wedding anniversary when I realized I completely forgot to write a blog.

It happens. I’ve been really busy, lately; I am married to a teacher who is wrapping up the school year, I’ve been coordinating a lot of events with a couple of groups I volunteer with, as well as working and taking care of my mother. I stay pretty busy these days, and I admit it completely slipped my mind because I was focused on the weekend.

We went to a favorite haunt; the same city where we spent our (really brief, college-student-cheap) honeymoon, and where we often hang out when we want to get away for an afternoon or a weekend. This time was different, though; it was the first time we’ve both been totally able to walk anywhere we wanted, including hiking on Saturday morning. We walked mountain trails and a promenade; just over that 5K distance, again. And, since both of us have been through the Knee Recycling Program over the past two years (him in 2017 and mine in 2018), we both felt pretty proud of what we accomplished.

It occurred to me as we were strolling around without limitations that while I’ve been a bit disappointed in myself at not pushing further with my weight loss efforts, it just might be a mental thing: everything I just imagined doing six years ago, I can now do. It’s nothing, these days, to walk out the door in the morning and stroll city streets for a couple of miles. Just one year ago, I was proud of making it past one mile, just a few days before my first of two knee replacements.

I still maintain that much of this journey is mental. I have not given up on my weight loss efforts, but I haven’t truly pushed through, either. I’ve met just about every single goal I set out to conquer. While I don’t have a recent assessment of my health, it’s possible I’ve gotten to the point where some of my medications should be reevaluated. Next week, my first knee replacement will be a year old.

I can walk into just about any clothing store that I want and find something in my size. I can even wear those One Size Fits Most garments that were more like a cruel joke, before; I bought one on a whim while in a clothing store last weekend. The clerk said I’d love it. I do. And I’m surprised as hell.

As I look forward to an active summer ahead of me, I’ll be working on a new goal that pushes me that final distance forward; something I still can’t do, yet, that I want. My journey isn’t over, yet, but it sure is great to be actively doing the things I once thought were lost to me.

Several years back, I signed up for a 5K. I’d never been in one, but had been walking quite regularly — even starting to jog — and decided I’d give it a try. It was to benefit the family of a local coach who died in a horrible car accident, and I knew the effort and the charity were both worth my time.

What I didn’t know was that it was a cross country 5K, and although it was for both walkers and runners of all ages, I was the only walker. Needless to say, I came in dead last; not only dead last, but organizers occasionally drove out on an ATV to see where I was on the course. When I finally crossed the finish line, I was greeted by a line of cross country student mothers, who cheered me on, but I still felt — well — mortified.

It’s been a number of years since then; pounds gained and lost; knees lost and new ones gained.

Tomorrow, I’ll rise early and drive to work a water aid station for a 5K/10K run. I’ve worked aid stations, before; most recently for a marathon. While I don’t aspire to be a runner, I absolutely respect the effort both runners and walkers make, and they hardly fit one standard mold. Like the past two marathons I’ve worked, the weather is supposed to be nothing short of bratty and petulant; colder than normal, the promise of rainfall, sometimes heavy. And those walkers and runners will still be out there, making the efforts for their own personal reasons, whether their personal best is a shorter time or to simply cross the finish line, as I once did.

And after that? I’ll be walking my own 5K with a group of friends; it’s a virtual 5K, and I even already have a medal. It’s to benefit a distant charity and our group decided to walk together rather than on our own, although I walked my own 5K one morning recently. I don’t know, yet, whether we’ll choose a different day because of the weather; after all, the point of a virtual 5K is the honor system of completing the task on your own, not for a best time or to beat another.

Back then, I walked to music so I would walk faster; these days, I am alone with my thoughts as I walk, and I’m pretty slow. Given the same cross country 5K, again, I’d likely not set any land speed records. But the point isn’t to win the race or set a blazing speed; for me, it’s to take one step after another, and to finish. Just like the journey I’m on to get in control of my health; speed isn’t the issue. Winning, or rather, accomplishing my goal, is absolutely the point.

Not so long ago, walking to the end of the block and back was unthinkable. Now, to not finish my daily step goal of 10,000 steps is unthinkable. Yes, my abilities have grown and changed, but it’s my perspective that has changed the most; just like working toward the goal of completing a race, success comes in a series of progressions; sometimes setbacks, but inevitably, new personal bests of a sort.

Knowing I’ll eventually cross the finish line, regardless of how long it may take me, is far more important than the speed my feet can carry me.

Sometimes — things happen that have the potential for derailing me. I’m watchful for the common triggers; returns from vacation, holiday deviations, highly emotional events.

And sometimes, there seems absolutely no reason for losing heart. This has been me this week. There’s really been nothing that has discouraged or challenged me; I just have not pushed the way I know I should be. I’ve let my guard down knowingly. I know damned well what it takes to be back on course, and I haven’t done it.

These really are the times why this journal exists; these are the things I need to talk through and address. I already know that I need to recommit and push through this, and yes, even if I don’t particularly feel it right now, fake it until I make it. I have not totally gone off the rails, but I have let myself off the hook rather easily instead of being diligent. I’ve let damaging thinking creep in; why shouldn’t I be able to eat like a normal person on occasion? It’s not fair that I should have to be so diligent — all the time.

The thing is, I know that’s wrong thinking. If the unfairness of life was a great excuse for jumping off the bandwagon, very few of us would ever remain.

When I sat down to write out this entry, not only was I disappointed in myself for letting my eating get out of hand, which in turn led to an upset stomach, which I was going to let stop me from finishing the 4500 steps I needed to meet my 10,000 step goal for the day. It just seemed like too much.

So I sucked it up. I stopped writing. I went out and I walked. I don’t listen to music when I walk; I use the time to think things through, and one of the things I realized was that I was lying to myself when I told myself nothing triggered this destructive funk. No, a number of things have been building up.

For one, I have been hypercritical of the many photos that were taken of me while I was on my girls’ trip cruise. While I felt great on the cruise, I thought I looked awful in many of the photos. Like I have been fooling myself into believing I don’t have that much weight to lose. Instead of thinking it through, I let visceral disappointment slap me in the face instead of understanding this is one of my triggers, and I needed to put that into perspective. I can’t sit here and write out blogs that recognize that I am not done yet, and then be surprised when I see photos that simply agree with what I’ve been saying.

I’m not done yet. And that’s okay.

Another trigger: I have to remember and understand that even though I may be deeply vested in something, in this case, my music, I can’t expect that of others. I don’t even really know what I was expecting — it wasn’t realistic to think I’d have this cheering section at my recent concert; and I had no reason to expect that, anyway. I deeply appreciate those who were there, including my husband, but the deep emotions I have tied up in creating music are mine only. And in the end, I don’t perform for others; I perform for me. Letting myself become disappointed rather than remembering why I do this — it was another trigger, a disappointment I felt as a child when my parents rarely came to my concerts. I am not that child, and I learned, then, that my music was for my own heart.

I also have a tendency to let myself become overwhelmed and instead of taking control and rationally thinking things through and breaking up big commitments into manageable pieces, I have been letting myself freeze. This is a behavior I haven’t allowed for some time and I have no room in my life for it, now.

What I have done is let my behavior slide into old habits; it’s an easy matter to do when you’re not willingly paying attention. This is why it’s important to always remember that this is a continuing journey. I cannot allow myself to slide back into thoughts and processes that hurt me more than they help, and I have learnd the skills, now, to work through these things.

The last trigger was the reminder from a friend how my weight had once been a way to hide from the world; I don’t hide much, these days, nor do I get to hide much. I live out loud and in living color, and sometimes, that’s scary. When you know what it is to hide from the world and find safety there, it’s surprisingly easy to fool yourself with distractions and silently let yourself recede back into that comfort zone. That’s what I’ve been doing. While I’m not done, yet, neither can I afford to let myself go backwards.

So today, I have consciously thrown off these old coping mechanisms that really didn’t serve me well at all, and I have chosen to not let those things take over. I walked my 4500 steps and reached that 10K goal, and tomorrow, I will consciously choose what I eat, so I can regain my footing. Instead of drowning, I will choose to make it rain, and embrace the need for change.

Earlier this week, I set out to walk first thing in the morning, with the intention of knocking out a fair portion of my 10K step goal. While I’ve been at that daily goal for a little while, I’ve been trying to move more steps to one long walk earlier in the day.

I didn’t really set out to walk the equivalent of a 5K, which is exactly what I ended up doing. My previous longest walk had been around 2 miles; I cleared 3.2 miles and knocked out nearly 80% of my daily step goal in one long walk. It felt really great to pull that off, but I hadn’t intended that as my goal when I walked out the door. In fact, I do that a lot, really; I walk out the door, having a vague idea of how far I want to walk, but end up walking farther than I intend.

Mind you, I believe in goals. I’m a girl who likes having a plan. I absolutely believe that if you fail to plan, plan on failing. Most of the time, anyway. So, walking out the door with just a vague idea of what I want to accomplish (some days, not every day) seems to go against that.

But, quite honestly, I did the same thing when I started this journey in the early days of September, 2013. I had a vague idea that I wanted to give weight loss another shot. I knew the general shape of what I wanted to do. But I didn’t over-plan it.

While I believe in planning, I also firmly believe you can plan yourself into dormancy. You can analyze something so much that you freeze and never get around to actually starting what you hoped to accomplish. You can drown in too much information. You can bury yourself in details so deeply that you stagnate.

I know I’m entirely capable of putting so many requirements on something I claim I want to do that I end up never doing it. Sometimes, the best thing any of us can do is just dive in and hope we can swim. Maybe we fling around for a bit before we find our way, but maybe we also learn from that. And that’s really where I’ve been in this journey.

It hasn’t been a perfect chain of doing everything right; it’s been more like a busted roller coaster at times. I’ve gone backwards. I’ve been in danger of quitting. But these are the things I needed to deal with in order to get where I am, now, and where I want to be.

I saw a quote, recently, about being so tied to the destination that we never enjoy the journey; the belief that happiness is the next thing, the next day, the next accomplishment, rather than what we experience today. I’ve had to learn, most of all, to be in the moment and understand that no matter where I find myself in each moment, there’s something worth savoring. That sometimes the rewards and bravery comes with jumping in and not knowing where you’ll end up instead of planning something into oblivion. Sometimes, you just have to take the chance.

“What? It’s easy! Just like riding a bike!”

I’m here to tell you — and I have said so, before — this is one cliche that doesn’t work.

Sometime around 12 years ago, not long after we moved into our current home, my husband and I got the bright idea to go buy bikes. At the time, I was still close to my low weight from having lost 140 pounds, and I thought it might help me keep in shape, but I quickly discovered that my knees wouldn’t bend enough to push the pedal all the way around. My solution at the time was to have a bike shop replace the crank arms with shorter ones. And that worked for a bit.

Then I gained weight and the bike got parked. It sat there until a couple years ago when I decided I’d try to air up the tires and ride it around the backyard. Hubby was with me when I tried to work up the courage to get up on the bike and get going.

It didn’t happen. I feared falling enough that I couldn’t work up the courage to get moving on the bike, but as it was, my knees had grown bad enough that I couldn’t push the pedals all the way around, even on the shortened crank arms. So I stuck the bike back in the garage.

I lost more weight and upgraded my knees. There are things I have promised myself I would do once that happened; I’ve accomplished some of them, like getting back to walking (it’s lots easier, now), traveling easier, and most recently, dancing. Biking and scuba diving are also on the list.

We have camping trips scheduled for the summer, so I’ve been eying those bikes in the garage. I took mine out, figured out how to clean it up, change the tubes, clean and grease the chain, and a bit more. I also did the same for my husband’s bike. He got on his and rode it around from the back of the house, where I set up my little temporary repair shop, around to the front, and back again.

Me? I put in the work, and I managed to get on the bike enough to adjust the seat to what I thought might be a good height, but it took me until the next day to work up the courage to get on and try to ride. And I did it. I didn’t ride for very far; just around to the front of the house so I could put it in the garage, but that was enough to show me that I could do it. It’s still going to take some time to get comfortable at it, but I think I’m ready for this one. As long as I don’t fall and dent my knees, now that they’re metal. 😉

I have a different perspective on how “easy” it is to ride a bike; and it’s not easy if it’s no longer familiar. The cliche only applies if it’s a familiar activity. For those of us who haven’t sat on a bike consistently in decades, there’s nothing easy about it — but that doesn’t mean impossible. Like anything else, it takes figuring out, but the payoff is worth the effort.

I recently came back from a week long cruise in the Eastern Caribbean with two dear friends — a girl’s trip. It was totally restorative; before leaving, I think my shoulders had been permanently attached to my ears. Now? While I still wish I was sunning myself on a beach in the Caribbean, the relaxation is still with me, and I hope it continues for a bit longer.

As expected, I gained weight. I knew I would, especially since this particular ship has won awards for outstanding food, and while I generally don’t consider food to be part of a vacation, I enjoyed myself entirely this time around. Nearly every bite was worth the compromise of understanding that it would sink to my butt until I got home and worked it off. Getting on the scale and seeing the number was no big surprise.

What I didn’t expect: I put in a ton of steps and danced every single night. This body hasn’t boogied for a really long time; I was tentative, at first. I did the white girl shuffle; rock back and forth from my left to my right foot. But after a bit of that, I stopped caring what I looked like on the dance floor and just danced.

I danced. I danced with other people; I danced alone; I danced a line dance without killing myself. And it felt amazing to just move to the music and share that joy. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning and danced even more. By the end of the week, some of my body parts complained, but not enough to keep me entirely off the dance floor — and not all those pains were from dancing.

We snorkeled, we walked on the sand, we felt the warm water around our bodies with a drink in one hand. Probably my biggest challenge of the week was getting back up a wet metal ladder into the back of a sailboat, and while I was a little frustrated with myself, I eventually got up in the boat. Rather than dwelling on it, though, I recognize that I still have work to do on strengthening my legs.

These are the types of experiences I only dreamed about years ago. Even knowing there are still areas where I would like to improve, I didn’t feel limited or denied in any way. Even as recently as last fall’s cruise, before my second knee surgery, I didn’t feel comfortable getting up and dancing — and my travel friend was always there to assist me or wait on me if needed. She didn’t need to do that this time, and I am thankful for that. One of my biggest goals is to not feel like I am imposing on anyone else.

I’ve already warned my husband that the next time we have an opportunity to dance, he’d better watch out!

Part 2 of 2 — thoughts on the podcast “Tell Me I’m Fat” — This American Life

“Tell Me I’m Fat” – This American Life

Intro: folks, I am off on a trip with a couple of great traveling companions, taking a cruise, so I’ve written two blog entries to carry us over until after my return. The first appeared last week (see: “A Different World”).

Part 2: Physical Exorcism

In part 1 of this blog, I spoke about separating my view of my own physical self so that I am objective about my health goals. In the podcast mentioned above, host Ira Glass spoke with Elna Baker, a woman who has beat the odds and successfully lost — and maintained — 110 pounds.

Most of us who have struggled with weight would immediately be impressed with her efforts, but as she told her story, it appeared to me that she struggles with the mental aspects of her loss, admitting that she felt certain her job and her successes were because she lost the weight.

It felt like that famous Eddie Murphy sketch on Saturday Night Live, where he goes undercover in whiteface and gets treated way better. He rides the city bus. And when the last black rider gets off, music starts. A cocktail waitress in a sequined dress hands out martinis. That’s what I felt like– like this whole other world for thin people had existed alongside mine, a world they’ve been keeping a secret from me.

Elna Baker, on her reaction after weight loss

I can’t really argue with that; things are different after massive weight loss, even in interactions with people who don’t know I have lost over half of me. I find people are much friendlier than they once were. I don’t necessarily think weight loss has opened up job opportunities for me, or relationships, but I believe perceptions of me are different than they once were.

In a population that’s growing steadily heavier, we still persist with stamping those who are overweight with any number of perceptions, often stated as facts rather than opinions. I’m only concerned for your health. You’d be so much prettier if you lost weight. Think of your family. Fat is just so gross.

I’ve heard those comments — and many more, as if those should be motivators to change my lifestyle and just become more normal. Obese = bad, thin = good. Nothing has really changed about this outlook in decades, and whether people consciously realize a bias against fat people or not, they are there.

Even the medical community is guilty; in the article “Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong” the author interviews a number of obese individuals that have gone to doctors for medical advice, only to be told they’re fat and to lose weight rather than having their issues addressed.

Ms. Baker spoke about getting rid of photos from when she was fat, including in family photo albums. She told her new husband that she thought he probably wouldn’t have dated her as a fat person. She broke off a previous relationship because the man hadn’t realized he had met her before she lost weight, and she felt as if he was with her because of the weight loss.

As new Elna, I threw out all my pictures of old Elna and all the pictures in my parents’ photo albums too, because I didn’t want people to see them. And when I looked at those photos, they made me feel bad, because in the pictures, I looked happy. And I’d look at them and think, you’re so stupid to think that you’re happy. That’s crazy, of course. And now I don’t have any pictures of myself from ages 12 to 22.

Elna Baker, on removing her fat self from existence.

This made me sad to hear. I have no doubts that all of it is true; what bothers me is her need to try to erase her life before she lost weight. I did that, too, when I lost 140 pounds. I tried to push that life away from me rather than learning the lessons I so very much needed to learn.

While I have learned to consider my body objectively, I think it’s a mistake to completely break from the person I was before weight loss. I am still her; she’s still here, within me, and I can just as easily repeat the errors of my past and throw away 5 1/2 years of hard work by trying to pretend I was never super morbidly obese.

I have the potential for complete success. I also have the potential for complete failure, and I’m actually a lot more familiar with failure than success. I would be throwing away many years of learning from those failures if I were to push against where I’ve been. I refuse to condemn myself for having failed; without learning, there is no growth.

Ms. Baker confesses that she doesn’t like how she must maintain her weight loss; I get the sense that she feels captured and cornered in her now-smaller body, and that she puts her career, her relationships at risk if she doesn’t keep the weight off. That she identifies more with being at home in her fat body than the one she now inhabits.

When I lost 140 pounds, I fought hard to get where I was. I worked out like a demon. I tortured myself with food choices. If I saw so much as a couple pounds gained, I feared I would throw it all away, and yet, I knew what I was doing wasn’t sustainable. It became a miserable existence, and eventually, my grasp on maintaining my losses slipped away… with some relief, I might add.

Now, 192 pounds down in weight, and weighing around 20 pounds less then my previous lowest weight, I don’t feel the same threats at all. I am comfortable in what I’m doing. I truly feel like I have the right tools to keep the balance. It’s sustainable. I am happy. I am not fighting myself at every turn. The difference, there, is huge.

And the difference is chiefly the mental one of not only acceptance and recognition of where I’ve been before, but a great relief in knowing with certainty that my success is totally within my own ability. I would never have reached this point of laying down the burden of eternally flogging myself over weight, had it not been for the path I’ve chosen.

I don’t see the point in physical exorcism; it’s unnecessary. Finding peace in the journey is much more important for my mental wellbeing than rejecting the parts of me that failed before.