woah!

i'm waiting for my brother to get to my house to go see a movie, and i was killing time by reading my blogs from the past month. i have learned a couple of things.

1. i need to write even when i feel ashamed and unhappy. that's just as real a part of this process as the success, and people can learn as much (or more) from my failures than my successes, including me.

2. despite my roller coaster and the guilt and bad feelings, i declare the holidays a success.

having written about all of the crap i ate at christmas parties, thanksgiving leftovers, cookie trays, entertaining at my house, christmas eve and day.... i can see that i really indulged in holiday food. but i'm going to make a bold statement here: i don't think i OVER indulged. some would say ANYTHING off the plan is a failure. but here i sit today, december 28th, and i weigh slightly less than i weighed when i woke up thanksgiving morning (166.4 today vs. 166.6 that day). i ate cookies, chips, breads, caramel corn, stuffing, chowder, martinis, creme brulee. cheesy potatoes, candy, clandestine thanksgiving leftovers.... too many things to count. and i ALSO worked my butt off each week to try to reverse the consequences of those decisions. and so here i sit 3 days after christmas, and i weigh less than when the madness began. i didn't make all good decisions, but i didn't make all terrible ones either. for the first time i didn't fall victim to "while i'm being bad, i will be VERY bad."

of course i wish i had lost 10 pounds this month instead of staying the same. but i also got to enjoy the extravagance of the season with my friends and family with no harm done. and now january looms ahead, and i can double down and go at this with the gusto i had pre-thanksgiving. hopefully being at or very close to my 100 pound goal by st. patrick's day. if not by then, then by april 22nd, my one-year anniversary of starting this new lifestyle. i have NEVER lasted a year on a diet before.

thank you for sticking by me and supporting me when i needed it. it has truly taken a village to make this morbidly obese girl only "overweight" in 2013. thank you.