size 44.

and then yesterday, as if to fire my resolve, i finally got a dress i ordered from h&m online weeks ago. and it's not the 36 (8) that i ordered, but a 44 (16), the size i used to wear, back in the day. the dress was labelled correctly as a 44, but put into a 36-marked plastic bag for mailing. i tried it on, anyway, just because, and it was supremely weird. i took up that much space? when i wore 44s, i would quite likely never have worn that dress, because of the giant boobs i had back then, and the chub rub i'd get when wearing skirts. returning it tomorrow.

now that i've lost weight... [#7]

wearing stuff in layers is fun!

i never wore layers in my fat days and never got how people could stand wearing plenty of layers. doing so made me supremely uncomfy. i always felt constricted and bulked up and horrible when wearing more than one layer.

i was also often cold.

those days are over. right now, i'm wearing aa winter leggings (oh, i love you!) and socks and legwarmers and a cami and a dress and a cardigan and a scarf. oh, the options!

now that i've lost weight...[#5]

i wear skinny jeans. can't quite get my head around that fact.

my new obsession.

hello, my name is c., and i've recently developed an obsession with super high quality weirdo tights. i love them. love, love, love, love, love them. give me paisley, and stripes and colour and texture. i want them all.

i keep thinking 'now, how did that happen?' (usually when standing at the cash register at the tights-shop, forking over good money for leg coverings that have been imported from italy) but really, i shouldn't be surprised. after all, the past two summers featured a lot of leggings. including some in colours other than black. maybe this is a natural progression of sorts.

it's still really weird, though. because i hated tights, back in the day. they were a must-wear-thing, not a wanna-wear-thing. they always tore. they never fit.

i remember one incident, oh, nine years back, when i was wearing some way-too-expensive-control-top-tights to my then law firm job in melbourne. i'd bought the largest size available at myer (ignoring the size chart), and that thing just didn't fit. everything was wrong about these tights. they were digestion-stoppingly tight all around, and the crotch kept sliding down. which caused two rolls of thigh flesh to get caught above the gusset and rubbing against each other. all day. i remember being close to tears in the bathroom stall at the office in the afternoon, sweaty from the effort of trying to get myself into these tights again. and close to tears. in the end, the tights won. at the end of the day, when i finally got home and could take them off, the insides of my thighs were rubbed raw. ouch.

it's so different now. tights are not a torture contraption anymore. they fit. they last. they're like underwear, in a way, and much more comfy than a bra. but above all, they're an accessory. and i've realised i like my accessories kinda eccentric.

hey you. [#03]

those too large jeans you've been wearing all weekend? put them away. as in: into the goodwill donation bin down the road. they're too large. way too large. you can't wear them out in public anymore. they might make you feel super skinny, yes, but in turn, they seem to make you eat more food than you need.

six weeks.

during my lunch break today (my first lunch break this week, crazy shit!), i had some soup at the bf's shop and then strolled through some cheapo trash stores, looking for nothing in particular (well actually, i'm kinda somewhat looking for a decent checked flannel shirt/dress, but well...), i was trying on sweaters, realising that i'm a size small now, pretty much everywhere. and standing in the dressing room at orsay, i looked at my ass in the mirror and realised that it's taken me all of six weeks to shrink out of my latest pair of jeans.

in other news: it's taken me eleven weeks to shrink out of my latest bras. i'm a b, tops. and for the first time in my life, i feel like i might actually need a push-up bra.

[all joking aside: the boob loss is pretty extreme, really. and i think it's partly to blame on my pcos/rising testosterone levels. will ask the fancy endocrinologist at the -omfgwhatamidoingthere- infertility clinic on wednesday. i miss my boobs.]

now that i've lost weight...[#2]

i wear knit mini-dresses. and heels.

[knit! mini! dresses!]

winter? i'm not sure yet that we'll get along.

it's here. winter, i mean. there'll be frost tonight. and me? i'm not ready.

it's not just that i was lying naked on a mediterranean beach just about two weeks ago. what's troubling me most right now is this: all my warm clothes? don't fit anymore. i'm on the verge of a major clothes crisis. which i know is ridiculous, and a great problem to have, and yaddayaddayadda. but oh! so! annoying nonetheless.

last years' warm coat? died this spring anyway, but would be way too giant to wear (esprit size xxl). all my other jackets (that i've been wearing these past few weeks) are way too big as well. so are all my warm jumpers.

this is the first colder day, i'm wearing boots, and jeans and a sweater from mango that i inherited from my friend s., and i'm hating it all. not the jeans, not the boots, not the sweater, but the look. the jeans plus sweater-look. this is what i wore when i was fat, what i wore all through uni. that i've had enough of. i don't want to wear variations of this for the next months to come.

summer was so much fun: i love all of my dresses and skirts and leggings and skimpy tops. but now? now what? all the stuff i did last winter - the skirts and thick jumpers and boots look - is not working for me sizewise anymore, either. i very obviously need to spend some quality time at h&m and figure this out, somehow. the goal: to buy lots of non-jeans, non-sweater-but-still-kinda-wintery clothes. and a coat or parka. and some boots.

it should be fun, i know. but right now? i'm kinda freezing.

denim days.

yesterday, in my old, too big jeans

i wore jeans for the first time in months this week.

see, i'm a girly girl, these days, all dresses and skirts and more dresses. don't know when and how exactly that happened, but at some point during this journey (oh, i hate that word), i stopped wearing jeans. not because i hated them, just because i started to prefer other kinds of clothes. and well, maybe i did hate them, a bit. jeans, during my fat days, were (like most clothing) uncomfy and too warm and uncomfy. and did i say that they were uncomfy? always digging into my love handles and pinching my ass and just never feeling right. first thing i did when coming home was always taking off my jeans and my bra.

during my fat days, i wore pretty much nothing but jeans and random tops. jeans were the only pants i could ever find that fit and i got so obsessed about fits that did, that i got people to import them from the us and uk for me. as if there were no jeans in this country that could snug my bum just so.

[on another note: you know, i'm still learning how to dress and all. i never learned how to combine clothes, what stuff flattered my shape, how to accessorize, whatnot. i never learned on what items to splurge and on what items to save. never had enough pants or bras, not because we were poor, but simply because my mom had no clue about how to dress herself, either.]

in any way, i wore jeans this week. and lo and behold, the jeans that i bought at 75 or so kilos just about a year ago, they're too big. way too big. taking-them-off-without-undoing-them-too-big. i wore them anyway because it's cooled down significantly and i had just done four loads of laundry with all my fave skirts. and poof!, all day, i got compliments. out of nowhere. from colleagues that i hang out with every day (who should have gotten used to the smaller me by now), from random aquaintances i ran into and especially from a., the bf's daughter (who lives in another ity and came to visit over the weekend). a. couldn't get over how much weight i've lost. she last saw me in late june, btw.

it's the jeans, i swear. i guess all those skirts and dresses i've been wearing (while nicely showing off my back and arms) just haven't shown off my legs and bum. and well, they're smaller, that bunch. a lot smaller, actually. i had a weird disconnect all day, looking down at my jeans-clad thighs, not recognising them as mine. they're SO! SMALL! NOW! (which they're not really, just in comparison to what they were like back in the day.)

loved that feeling so much that i actually went out and bought some more jeans today, at h&m. just cheap ones (they had a 10 euro off any jeans-offer, yay!) , to get me over this fall. one, a lovely dark dress pant cut, is a dress size 38 (or 10, woohoo!), the other a 30 inch; same cut, just two inches smaller than my too big jeans from last fall. yay.

i guess i'm making peace with jeans. and well: they're not uncomfy anymore. which surely helps. lucky me.

progress.

i did not buy the first (ever?) size 36 (8) dress that i fit into. it was supercute, and cheap and at esprit (of all places - i hated them so much because their 42's were way too small for me, back in the day). but way too tame for me.

no more buying things just because they fit! progress, people, progress!

contrast and compare.

on the left: me, carrying 22kg of vegetable shortening, the weight that i have lost so far.
on the right: me, carrying 3kg of vegetable shortening, the weight that i still have to lose to reach my official ww goal.

't was a humbling experience that one. surprisingly emotional, too. literally ran into the boyfriend in front of the supermarket on my way home from the gym last night, and so we finally took that photo i've been meaning to take for a while.

these past days, i've been really struggling with the realisation of what i look like now, what kind of sizes and what kind of clothes fit. it's a bit eerie, but my mind doesn't seem to have caught up with the reality of my body yet. it's the exact reverse of what i was suffering from back in the day, when i looked in the mirror and didn't realise that i was fat.

i've been looking at snapshots someone took of me at a wedding yesterday, and can't quite grasp that i don't hate a single one of them. i look athletic and fit and happy in all of them. my arms and my back have definition. how weird.

this is me now, and if i dare say so myself: i look pretty damn fine. i'm partly this stunned, because i never expected this at 67kg. 67kg is not that little. my bmi is 23 or so, and it's definitely significantly more than i expected to weigh when being able to fit into a size 38 (10) dress. but i'm not complaining, at all. ever again. i'll lose those 2 point something kg, and then i'll continue a little more and then i'll focus on fitness, and nothing but fitness, and all will be well.

it's so weird that there was so much more of me, not so long ago. that i was lucky when i found clothes that fit and wore worn-out pants, and bought mainly underwear and shoes, because most of the time nothing did. i can buy a 10 euro dress at forever 18 in a size medium now, and make it look good. i can wear one of those almost see-through halterneck hippie dresses from nepal. i can buy clothes whenever, wherever. i don't have to buy something, just because it fits. that flowery dress i ordered from frontline the other week arrived yesterday, and it fits perfectly, but it just doesn't look like *me* at all. so i'll send it back, and possibly order something else, or get a custom-made dress from etsy or go out and buy another. clothes are so much more fun now. my body is so much more fun now. everything is.

the weirdest thing, though, is: i not only lost this weight that i carry in that above picture, i *gained* it, before, obviously. how did i let that happen? how did i not *care*? life must have gotten harder, as i gained. i must have bought bigger pants and whatnot. i must have noticed. but i can't remember noticing it until trying to buy a dress for those weddings in spring last year.

in any way, i'm trying hard to not put too much importance to the number on the scale (or the number of packages of shortening): i am so much healthier now. i eat yummy, healthy stuff that gives me energy, instead of stuff that makes me feel bad. i bike everywhere, i run, i lift weights, i go for 15+k walks with the dog, just because i feel like it, i sleep better. it's a different life. and right now, i can't quite believe that it's mine.

i'm starting to feel all guilty about chucking successphotos into the accountability pool, lately. i can't quite believe that i've done it, finally. i really have. wow.

crazy.

i bought a dress yesterday.

and it's a size 38 (10). i can't remember doing that ever before.
crazy.

and that is all.

"normal".

so i went bra shopping yesterday. and despite all my blabber the other day, that i was totally alright with my newly smaller boobs, i stood in the department store changing room in a super awesomely fitting 75c(34c) bra, and was a bit freaked out. and - well - sad.

i'm normal now, boobwise. there is no more boob spillage, no more boob abundance. my upper body is lean and kinda muscly, and the boobs that are attached to it are totally and utterly normal size. maybe even a bit on the small side, actually. all that's a wee bit odd. because i was never normal, and my boobs were always larger than normal; often significantly larger than normal. just like the rest of me.

and now, i'm normal. whatever that is, anyway.

the results of monday's superawesome weigh-in at the gym felt really good. both my bmi and my body fat are within normal range now. and i really can't get over it: normal. i was never normal, ever. and now i am. how very very odd.

can't wait to spend a few hours trying on clothes at h&m. i have no idea where i am, clotheswise, especially pants wise, as pretty much all my regular clothes are too big now, even the size m's. oh yeah.

bye bye boobies.

my boobs have gone missing. for good, i assume.

at the end of april, on the day that the bf closed his shop, i bought a new bra. it was a strapless triumph one, and i got a proper consultation and measurement for it. it also scared me shitless. because the size of that contraption? 75e (34dd).

it's way to big now. way way way too big. the cups have folds on their undersides and all, and i have to close the band at it's tightest level. still wore it today. because it's the only (60 euro worth) strapless bra that i have. all my other, mostly 75d (34d) bras, are to big as well, including my two recently aquired, super awesome triaction sports bras. the latter are okay to wear, still, but all those regular bras are not.

i never got why women hated underwire bras. turns out i was quite simply always well padded enough to not be bothered by them. but that padding is gone now, and those underwires poke everywhere. it's especially evil between my boobs, where they rub and move on my sternum and hurt surprisingly bad. it's also freaking annoying and i was that bra tugging woman all day today. it's something that i hate, btw, that bra tugging. makes me feel very self-conscious and bra-challenged.

the loss of the boobs themselves, however, isn't impacting me that much. sure, it's a bummer that they're even less perky now, and kinda deflated, but those smaller boobs surely have surely improved my general silhouette and make me look a lot smaller than i used to be. i guess it helps that i got my nipples pierced, last winter - i've loved my boobs more than ever before, since then (nicer, more visible nipples, yay!). can't really pinpoint why, maybe because they've got so much more personality now. or something.

in any way, i'll be buying some new bras this week. one strapless one and one regular one, for now. who knows if those boob will continue to shrink? no idea, what size i'll need. maybe 70c?

[also: have no idea, what the rest of my body is like, either. i totally need to head out to the shops to try some things on. ordered a dress from frontline - where i still had some store credit after a dress i had ordered a few weeks ago turned out to be giant - and wasn't sure what size to get. chose an m. wondering whether it'll fit.]

harder, better, faster, stronger.

i just barely maintained, this past (birthday and party-filled) week, and am trying really hard to a) find this normal and totally okay and b) make sure it doesn't happen again this week by stepping it up a notch. while not going insane. it's quite the challenge.

it's all pretty splendid, right now, but i am at a rather dangerous point in this journey: i love myself now. already. i think i am so dead hot, so sexy, getting firmer and stronger and skinnier every day. at 72kg. bmiwise still in overweight-land.

but clothes fit, and they fit well. i bought two dresses at the flea market on saturday, kinda thinking they could be goal dresses, and instead they both fit perfectly. one is a (vanity) size six. and yesterday, i bought a dress i'd been ogling since april. i'd tried it on, once, and it was too small in an l (or xl, maybe?). and now i got it in an m. and at 50% off. and it looks awesome.

i could totally be this weight for the rest of my life, and be happy and content. albeit, i don't want to. i want to be harder, better, faster, stronger. fitter. i want to take up less space, be lighter, a runner. me. just new and improved, by my very own hard work.

this (small, awesome success) really is should not be enough: if it's so great to buy clothes now, how awesome and easy will it be at minus 7 kg? if it feels so light and easy to run week three of couch to 5k, how awesome will it be to feel lighter and stronger when i run my real 5k on september 13? (i've totally signed up, oh yes.).

i love myself, and life, and everything.

last night, i struggled to go to the gym for the second time ever. the muscles beneath my shoulder blade had majorly cramped up (again), i was tired and hungry and whiny. but i went. and did the weights circle, and the power plate, and then i ran my podcast and all but two of my machines. and then i did a back strenghtening class, just because. and felt better. so much better.

my back, unfortunately, isn't much better yet. could hardly sleep last night. date with the physio is booked for this arvo. can't wait.

and in other news...

today, i'm wearing an american apparel henley dress, that i bought as a long shirt to wear over jeans back in mach 2007 (and practically never wore) . and i am wearing it as a dress. with leggings.

(and it's a bit too roomy, actually.)

slow'n'steady.

it's been going alright, yes. 75.5 on last weigh-in, a day early. then came a crazy party night with crazy party eating and some booze and two days of ever so slight going above points. but now all's well and i am firmly back on track and - according to a careless morning weigh-in today still at 75,5. or ,6 or whatever. totally okay. wearing that washed out grey denim skirt i bought back in 2003. it fits again pretty alright after being too tight at the beginning of the year. the light blue skirt i bought in march is too big, btw. wanted to wear it this morning, but it just looks awfully boxy right now.

it's all been a wee bit hectic these days. a water leak at the boyfriends soon-to-be-opened shop right after we got home from the party on sunday, a lot of work stress, a toothache for which i'm on antibiotics right now (yet again, how many days until the usual yeast infection joins in?). yawn. was super hungry last night, fell asleep right dinner and couldn't get up at 8 this morning. oh wel
i need to spend some time with the weightwatchers website again: i've been running out of points (aiming for -4 every day) superearly every day, just by eating carrots and curt, rice cakes and....some sorbet. no points left for dessert in the evening, which is so very sad. gotta check out some low point-no stress snack options.

anyway. all on track round here. well, well.

back on the scale gang.

i've been weighing myself every morning. not sure whether that's sick or brilliant. thing is: i don't want to be upset about a lousy number on weigh-in day, when it's just because of some retained water or so. so yeah. this morning: 76,3. so this is going well, really well, actually.

still upset though. and feeling stupid, too. i'm starting to get my control high, and all. high because i look at numbers, both in weight watchers and on my scale. silly, silly, silly. i just checked what i weighed when i bought the dress that i'm wearing today. it was 83kg or so, early june last year.

anyway. the grande plan of spending the rest of the weekend in the buff, once the bf comes come tonight, collapsed into nothing. there's social crap with friends we apparently have to attend and people staying at his place. don't feel like it at all. we've had zero time together in weeks, and i'm just tired of sitting around talking while people get drunk or high. i need some lonetime with him, and urgently.

anyway. no whining. gotta clean up the flat now. and smile. and stay in control. ha. hell, i can already see myself walking down this path way too fast.

still overweight.

but just barely.

these have been fab weeks. i'm down to 72,9kg, some mornings. thank you, stress. 72,9kg. weeh.

i only realised this week that my bmi was 31 when i started. now it's 25. i'll soon be below that for the first time in my adult life. yes, the whole bmi thing is faulty and fucked up, but still, i can't wait for someone to put the "normal" label on me. i hadn't realised that at 31, i was considered obese. obese. looking back at it? yes, a bmi of 31 on me? is obese.

i've been feeling pretty fabulous lately. maybe it's the higher synthroid dose kicking in or something; i feel alive and fit but sleep too little. and i am wearing clothes i bought years and years ago. and almost everything is too large. yesterday, i wore a grey corduroy skirt that i bought in the fall of 2005 and it was too roomy. crazy. i very urgently need some new jeans. my skinny pair that i first re-wore on july 14? almost unwearable now. they are baggy and slide off me.

i am starting to like my body again. i look at it in the mirror again. i take care of it, i shave and exfoliate and moisturize and i love it when someone touches me. it's good, all good.

last night though, i ate out of stress, for the first time in months. it's been an emotionally stressful few days (and rightfully so, i'm turning my whole life around), so last night, in a foul mood and when buying toilet paper, i bought some semolina pudding baby food and wasabi peanuts. and i ate them in bed, like back in the fat days. and i felt somewhat better afterwards.

i need to watch this: medicating with food is a bad, bad idea, and a habit i don't want to get back into. now, this was once, and the situation was (and is) pretty damn horrible and another reason for the tiny binge is that i just got back from a business trip this week and just haven't been grocery shopping properly yet. i'm forgiving myself on that one.

anyway. project for this weekend: quite possibly buying some cheapo jeans at h&m to get me through the next few weeks. i'll buy them a wee bit too small to make them last somewhat longer. can't wait, really.

deliriously happy.

i can't get over how much fun it is these day to put on clothes. a few months ago, i would grab whatever was kinda clean and would hide my lovehandles. mostly jeans and shirts. black shirts. and i felt yuck. my bras hurt me, and i couldn't wait to get out of them in the evening. i jumped out of my jeans at the first chance i got, too.

now i wear leggings, and pants i haven't worn in years and dresses and skirts and colourful shirts and fitted tops. and i love getting dressed.

just saying.

today: those get me laid pants, ballerinas, a grey flowy top, a bright blue scarf, a grey hoodie that had always been too tight. yesterday i wore a skirt that i bought in 2002. ha.

yay. anyway. as to yesterdays goals:


goal check for today

• eating 16 points every day (saving 4 every day) - FAIL! saved none. we had m&ms a work. and i didn't get any dinner till 11, when all i could manage were some fried noodles from the thai take away. oh well.
  
• eating breakfast at work every day, preferrably veges or fruit - SUCCEED - had organic carrots and curt. yum.
  
• drinking enough water - SUCCEED - had more than 2l at work
  
• taking my vitamin every morning at my desk - SUCCEED
  
• finally doing turbo jam - not yet