As I’m working my way back to my low weight, I’ve done a lot of thinking about my journey, and learning to appreciate the changes. I unearth new discoveries without even meaning to do it. (It’s awfully nice to be back in striking distance.)

Chipping away at finding my next self.

These gold nuggets are NSV or Non-Scale Victories. My most recent one was discovering that my first wedding ring now fits. I’ve been married for 33 years, and I had to stop wearing the ring I received on my wedding day within a year of receiving it — not because it was too small, but because I hurt my hand and my ring finger swelled to a point where we had to cut off the band. It was a panicked at-home job, and none too neat.

It lay around in an old jewelry box for a couple of decades, mangled, something I felt sentimental about even though we replaced our rings not long after the initial accident. Then, probably a decade or so ago, I took it to a local jeweler and they fixed the ring. At that time, I’d just finished losing 140 pounds, so the ring was smaller than the one I’ve worn over recent decades. Considering I’d stopped wearing the larger ring before the beginning of my current journey because it had grown too tight, it’s a pretty cool accomplishment to have gone through two rings.

But it’s more than that. I feel other changes that have nothing to do with size, and everything to do with the core of me. Constant change over the course of my life has left an indelible mark. I am not that girl I was 40 years ago, 30 years ago, even 20.

I would not go as far as to say there’s no trace of her; in fact, in many ways, I’ve found myself peeling back layers of me, returning to the things that brought me joy so many years ago, unearthing my foundation, returning to home. But I am not that girl; I don’t have the same fears, the same trepidation.

Along with the weight, I’ve shed parts of me that are no longer useful, that were toxic and contributed to the state I was in. I’ve been working to retain the better parts of myself as I do this, and while I freely admit that at times it binds my mental processes to a point where I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels. I get restless, anxious, frustrated. But I’ve also learned that these things are most often the precursors to great strides forward.

I’m a hybrid of my former self and the lessons I’ve learned along the way, and instead of dreading the changes before me, I’m excited. I know there are big changes ahead of me; not just physically, but mentally, as well. I can feel those creative juices bubbling to life, and I know with absolute certainty that in the weeks, months, and years to come, I’m going to do things I never thought possible.

That girl I was, she used to be mine. She’s not gone. She’s better than she ever was, and the metamorphosis is far from complete.

I’m still camping. We have a campsite near the waterfront on a large lake, with easy view of the campground’s boat dock. All week, we’ve been watching people come and go; some more experienced than others. Some in a hurry to get out on the lake; others, in a hurry to get their boats out of the water before a storm sets in.

Among these, one stood out.

This pic looks a bit like Bonnie, my dog and companion, who becomes Captain Camp Dog when we’re camping.

He had an old fishing boat that looked like it had seen better days. He was young, perhaps inexperienced — or, more likely, in too much of a hurry to use good judgment. As he backed his boat and trailer down to the water’s edge, the whole trailer curved off to the side and just about into the boat dock, itself, wedging the boat into lapse of concrete between the boat launch and the dock.

I first noticed him because of the awful screeching sounds his trailer made as he backed up, sounding like metal scraping along the pavement. Sure enough, he must have jolted the boat enough that the boat motor had come down and the blades were scraping the pavement. He got out of the truck and manhandled the boat and trailer enough that the motor ended up in the right position, and he gunned the truck to get the trailer out of its stuck position. He managed to back the boat up to the water and release it to the water, tying it to the dock.

On the way up the launch to park his truck and trailer, I noticed that the metal grating sound wasn’t just the boat motor; one entire tire was shredded to the wheel. Despite that, he dragged the trailer up the hill, not to be seen again for a bit. I don’t know whether he chose to replace the tire with a spare or if he had to park the trailer and drive somewhere to buy a new tire, but it took him a bit to get back to his boat.

When he finally arrived, he untied his boat, pushed off the dock — and couldn’t get the motor started on the boat. He impatiently tried and tried — sputtering and gasping the boat through the no-wake-zone, until he was finally in the main channel of the lake. After that, we didn’t see him again. I missed it when he returned, but I thought about him.

Did he have a string of bad luck? Or were his misfortunes because he failed to prepare and plan?

I think, quite often, when I don’t see success in my weight loss efforts, that I have to go back and analyze what may have been outside of my control, and what was my own lack of planning and judgment. Did I do everything possible to produce the outcome I wanted, or did I just get lazy and blame circumstances?

Did I check that spare tire and have it with me, or did I just fly by the seat of my pants, trusting that I wouldn’t shred a tire at the last minute? Did I check to make sure my boat was in running condition, or did I just assume everything would be okay?

Are my circumstances to blame, or am I?

Personal responsibility, when it comes to weight loss (or anything else), is one of the toughest things to accept. If you’ve done everything within your power to succeed and you still fail, then it’s a matter of accepting that fate and doing the best you can under the circumstances. But if you’ve simply coasted and assumed that your efforts were good enough, then you’ve played a huge part in your own failure.

If you want to succeed, well, then — you have to actually get to where the boat leaves from in order to enjoy the ride.

Weight loss plateaus suck. I know, because for the last three months, that’s been my world.

I’m still chipping away at it. I know that sooner or later, I’ll reach the end of this plateau, and the good news here is that even if I were to stay at this weight forever, I am better off now than I have been. My life is much improved over what it was, even a few short months ago.

The number doesn’t surprise me; I just wish it would move!

Years ago, I lost 140 pounds — and then hit a two-year plateau. Two years. That’s a long time, my friends! Any time I reach a plateau or stall, I think about (and dread) returning to something similar, especially since that one ended badly. I regained every ounce of the weight I lost, plus some on top of it. I lost every bit of my mojo.

Looking back on it, now, I realize I was doing some things wrong, and that my body was fighting against me. That particular situation is nothing new; keeping my body in check is a constant battle, but I sat for far too long, doing the same things over and over and expecting change. I finally got frustrated and let myself slip into old habits. It was further complicated by physical injury which curtailed exercise.

I’m wary about finding myself in the same situation. I’ve accepted, recently, that I’m not doing everything I could be doing to further my goals, so I’m working harder toward those ends. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s also the need for change instead of just expecting the same things to work.

It’s always difficult to know when to change something, whether it’s the right change, whether it’s enough, but if it changes the results I’m getting, it’s worth it. I have to step out on faith and hope that the changes I institute will be the right ones. I’m determined to reach 120 pounds down; that’s 1.8 pounds below my low weight. Not much to ask of my body. I am pushing through, proving to myself that I can make that scale do my bidding.

The difference between this stall and my two year one is that my head is more in the right place, these days; I’m not about to step off my plan and allow big weight gains. I always say that I never want to return to that place, again, and that’s true; but I need to actually make that happen.

One of my lessons in learning on how to fit my brain into this changing body is learning to adapt to normalcy. I have lived for many years, being that person, the one who tries to fade into the background because she’s the largest person in the room, the most common identifier being that fat woman over in the corner.

If Rosie the Riveter could do it… so can we.

So when we were invited to a friend’s house this week to swim, I was ambivalent about it, at best. There are women of entirely average size that dread being seen in a bathing suit; quadruple that level of angst for me. I’m still a large woman — and with it, I carry the visible scars of my weight loss. I have batwings worthy of a 90-year-old woman. I have large amounts of loose, wrinkled skin in the areas where my weight loss has been the greatest. I am always conscious of this, even when not wearing a bathing suit.

I had a choice, though. I often swim at another friend’s house, because the people I’m with, there, have known me for many, many years — when I was at my fattest. When I was at my thinnest. And they accept me at all of the weights in between, which is one of the biggest gifts a friend can give someone who’s ever conscious of their physical being and limitations.

It’s an act of faith that other newer friends will be the same. I should have had no doubts; I went, had a great time, and never felt as if I were a science project. I’m blessed to know so many people who don’t stop at the surface and, instead, value people for the core of them, rather than their looks. As my mother likes to say, beauty is skin deep; ugly goes straight through to the bone.

That doesn’t erase the fear of judgment, though. I have been the object of nasty comments from strangers — and from people who have been close to me. I have dealt with judgment regarding my weight, no matter how well-meaning. I have been dismissed as something less than human, someone not worthy of customer service, someone apparently worthy of ridicule. There are still many people who firmly believe just the act of being overweight is a character flaw.

While I have fairly thick skin, these days, and someone’s opinion of me only matters if I respect them, there’s still a residue of fear in new situations. There’s still the awkwardness of dealing with someone who may automatically dismiss all that I am because of my physical characteristics.

Learning to live a normal life doesn’t mean I’ll live without these fears; I think most people — most women, at least — are concerned that they somehow don’t measure up to an imaginary (and likely unattainable) ideal. There are many who won’t wear shorts or sleeveless shirts in scorching hot weather (like we have right now!) because they are conscious of their imperfections.

The truth is that we all have imperfections; they are part of what makes us who we are, and in that light, they are not imperfections. They are traits that make us unique in some way, and just because we are different from some imagined norm should not be seen as a bad thing.

I am who I am; I would not choose for my heart and mind to be different, simply because of the container they exist in. For me, living normally means accepting myself for where I am at this moment, with whatever perceived flaws I may have, and not letting those fears govern my actions.

I’ve found the motivation to get my head back in the game.

I never completely lost my mojo, but I did put things on hold for a bit. Now, I’m working towards getting back on track for losing weight.

There are times when I have to fake it until I make it; I believe I started this whole journey exactly that way, nearly three years ago. And then there are times where I become my own motivation, and that’s what’s been happening the last few weeks.

Somewhere along the road

For one thing, I passed a one-year mark on logging into MyFitnessPal. I may not have consistently recorded all my data on a daily basis, but just the act of logging in kept my long term goals on my mind. If I had skipped a day, I would have had to start the count over, but even through 18 total nights of camping, I made sure I logged in.

For another, those of you who support me have reminded me of what I’ve accomplished — and that’s one of the biggest reasons I’ve invited you along for the ride. That reinforcement reminds me that I’ve fought a good fight, but still have a long way to go, especially when there are cameras about and I see photos of myself afterward. I still struggle with this, but I think, right now, my brain’s perception of me more closely matches my true physical being.

Thanks for being there — especially those of you that I was unaware were even following my journey. While I don’t openly talk about my weight loss journey unless someone asks, it’s always refreshing when someone asks. Many of you did this last week, and it reminded me of the many reasons I’m on this journey.

I have to remind myself that this isn’t a race, and that determination and effort are cumulative; every small step forward is worth the effort, even if it doesn’t seem important at the time. Like the character Andy Dufresne in Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption, chipping away at my goal will eventually get me to where I want to be — free. (The character spent 19 years using a small rock hammer to create an escape tunnel from prison.)

I’ll keep taking those small steps. Even now, it seems impossible that I’ve come this far, but it’s proof that everything I do toward my goal counts. The longest journey starts with but one step.

Oh, the brain work I’ve been doing! Not that everything on my mind will be solved in short order, but being conscious of my body and my mental thoughts helps a lot.

I’m not sure if everyone’s brain works this way, but I tend to forget easily. I find myself not liking what my body is doing RIGHT NOW and forget how far I’ve come. This morning was a reminder; we’re currently camping, and I showered at the camp bathhouse. I used the handicap stall because, in the past, I’ve needed to sit down. Standing and walking, especially on hard surfaces, is painful. I didn’t need that, today — I had no need to sit. And that’s a very good thing.

We’re doing a lot of camping this summer, and every time out is just a tad easier. Even though I haven’t lost weight, things are changing for me, and I find I’m in more control of my world. I’m also changing how I’m eating when we’re on the road, because every camping trip meant an uncomfortable weight gain, usually from water weight. I am a salt *fiend* and it’s meant giving up my salty snacks, but water retention means I’m miserable, and who wants to spend vacation time that way? Not me.

I’m also more comfortable. I’m sitting outside right now, in front of a fan; it’s currently 88 degrees with a heat index of 98, but I’m dry and comfortable. Taking off a great deal of weight has helped my body temperature in extreme temperature ranges. Being outside and enjoying the view is far better than sitting inside in the air conditioning; I’m a child of the outdoors, and (almost) always prefer outside to in. (I detest cold and won’t stay outside in the cold, if I can help it.)

From the banks of the Arkansas River — to you!

We used to tent camp, but bought a (gently) used pop-up camper about four months ago. Just getting into it would have been nearly impossible for me, before; if you haven’t been in one, they’re pretty tight on space. I can get around fine in ours, but at 371 pounds, that wouldn’t have happened, especially getting my posterior up onto an elevated bed, or on the bench seats in the dinette, or just fitting through the narrow galley.

It actually amuses me when my friends turn their noses up at camping; I honestly enjoy it, even if it can be a hassle at times. I’m not capable of doing everything in a campsite, just yet; not this year, but maybe by next year, I’ll be able to do just about everything. (I’m sure my husband will be amused to read this.) And by that, I mean actually towing the camper, leveling it, erecting it, pulling out the beds, raising the door — I help at those things, but I’m not to a point where I can do everything, yet.

I need to keep testing myself, pushing myself, challenging myself — it’s the only way my brain will accept my body at its current size and condition, so I’m able to move on and achieve even greater things.