The Chunkersons: The Evil Muffin Top

Whatever moron came up with the term "muffin top" to describe what's going on around my waist is the most vile brand of sadist.

Howdy girls, Kristin here. I've been doing OK-to-pretty-good most days, for the past three weeks or so. I have found that the ultimate motivation, at least for me, is a little taste of success. (WHO KNEW?!) I've decided to treat every teeny-tiny milestone throughout the remainder of my weight-loss journey as a HUGE accomplishment, complete with non-food rewards such as: Mommy-movie time, Mommy-reading time, Mommy soaking in the tub time, Mommy computer time, etc. These are all activities that I rarely have the pleasure of indulging much (if any) time in most days, so I'm excited to "earn" some of these, and somehow squish them into my days.

I'm officially 17.0 pounds down today, since February 7th, so I'm starting to get psyched. My progress still feels like it's going at a S-N-A-I-L's pace, but I'll seriously take whatever I can get. My little mini-"rule" for myself is, the scale can't go back up. As long as it's going down, (or on some days, staying the same...), I consider myself to be succeeding. But gaining pounds back is NOT an option.

I can't seem to shed the hated muffin top, though. I am surprised that 17.0 missing pounds haven't affected the way my stomach looks in the mirror, AT ALL. Is this some kind of cruel joke? I mean, yeah, the baby was almost 9 pounds (2 1/2 YEARS ago, sheesh!) and yeah, my skin is less stretchy at 42 than when I was in my 20s. I expected that it would take more work for it to "snap" back. But this is effing ridiculous. When I bend over at the waist and look in the mirror, it's like a big, empty bag is just hanging there - there's hardly anything there but skin. DISGUSTING, BLECCCCCHHHHH! It just hangs there. And because it's still there, I can't wear any of my old shirts - they're too tight around my flaccid gut. I guess it's time to finally break out the crunches every day, instead of randomly. DUH.

Today, I took the VERY drastic step of reducing my diet pop intake, from 3-4 cans per day down to 1-2 cans. This will be HARD for me. Cherry Coke Zero, mmmmmmmmmm! But even more drastic for me (my family would recoil in shock at this...) is that I started drinking water. I left the house with a big 32 oz. jug full of ice water, and by 10:30 a.m. I had finished the whole thing!!! I HATE DRINKING WATER! I don't even know why. Well, I guess I do; it's never cold enough. Thanks to my hubby for replacing the old fridge with the broken ice-maker with a new one, which fills up my water jug with perfect little cubes in 3 seconds. No more excuses for me to skip the water, nope nope nope.

I've realized that I used to make SO many excuses when it came to eating and dieting. I'm trying to stop that. The quality of the food I'm eating now has improved drastically, in addition to not eating even one calorie over 1100 each day. I'm now consuming loads of green and fruit teas, yummy soups, Greek yogurt, legumes, whole grain stuff I'd never heard of before (Ezekiel bread and Finn Crisp Rye crackers, etc.), fat-free cheeses, big salads, and raw veggies with fat-free dip. All of this makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something more than just losing pounds. I am starting to feel like even after I hit my goal the first week of June, I might just have my eating habits re-trained to the point that maybe, just MAYBE, I won't go back to my old ways and gain a bunch of it back. I CAN'T let that happen. That would be a total WASTE of my past 7 months of dieting misery. I don't want to just lose the weight for summer; I want to NOT BE DOING THIS ever again!!!

Losing this weight has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. It makes giving birth to two big babies seem like a walk in the park, and I'm not joking even a little bit.

I've got my eye on my half-way mark...I'm going to hit it next week. !!!!!!!

Hope you're all forging ahead out there, ladies! Would love to hear how you're all doing! Swapping stories will always be the best free motivation around, right? :o)