this is what a diet looks like.

holy dropping the ball on blogging, batman! i haven't talked to you guys since february. that was, like, a month ago, right? leap day confuses me, so your guess is as good as mine. calendars have numbers, which i equate to math. and if i had to choose one mathematical phrase to describe my relationship with math, it would be...minus sign?

and speaking of math related transition sentences, let's talk about the subtraction going on around my waistline.

GUESS WHO HAS FINALLY REACHED THE 20 POUND MILESTONE. spoiler alert: me!

pounds lost this week: -1.5 lbs.
total pounds lost: 20.5 lbs.
weight loss needed for next reward (new earrings): 4.5 lbs.

my original 20 pound weight loss reward was a pair of new jeans. but the top half of my body seems to be losing inches much more quickly than the bottom half of my body. aka, there is still plenty of thunder in these thighs. so i'm going to hold off on the jeans. instead, i treated myself to john mayer concert tickets. if he sings 'your body is a wonderland,' i'll know he has my weight loss in mind.

should we do a little 20 pound photo comparison? okay! oh, wait. i forgot to take a picture of myself this morning. so we're going to have to improvise by using last week's photo (but picture an extra container and a half of cottage cheese scraped from my body--fun fact: 1 large container of cottage cheese equals 1 pound).

front shot:


side:


you guys, let me give you some advice. if you ever start a weight loss blog, do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES (note the caps lock. i mean business.) take your 'before' shots in your pajamas. what in the world was i thinking?!

sadly, i can tell you exactly what i was thinking. i was thinking well, why try to camouflage how hideous you are? there's no use trying to look nice when you are such a disgusting slob. it's so sad how depressed i felt 20 pounds ago. i felt like a failure. as i watched something i had worked so hard to achieve slowly slip away, i totally let myself go. i didn't have the energy to change out of my pajamas for a photograph.

i know 20 pounds is only a small step on my 100 pound weight loss journey. but i am going to celebrate that step. i like how it feels to lose weight. i know that nobody can tell when i lose half a pound, but i love the feeling of knowing it's no longer on my body. i love the feeling i have at the end of the day when i know that i made healthy food choices all day long. i hate the feeling i have when i know i ate crappy food all day long. but i love being able to forgive myself for those mistakes because i know they are a minuscule blip on the radar. forgiving myself is the first step in learning to love myself again. which i guess is what it really boils down to: being able to love myself.

i deserve that.