[blessed]

Over the course of about six years I took four different trips to Kingston, Jamaica. Each trip was for the same purpose: to serve the people at Mustard Seed Communities (MSC).

MSC will forever hold a special place in my heart. In fact, I think a part of my heart is still in Kingston with the precious residents of MSC. Every Thursday they send me a Thank You Thursday email with a short little devotional.

Today's Thank You Thursday message hit home:

"At any time in our lives, we can find reasons to complain or simply give up. However, if we make an honest effort to focus on our blessings, we will always find reasons to be grateful. So today--focus on your blessings so that you may grow and excel in gratitude. Let us place more effort in thanking God every chance we get."

Lately I've been struggling to see the fruits of my weight loss journey. It's easy to see how far I have to go before I reach my goal. It's easy to see how even though I wear a smaller size now, I'm still a bit limited in my clothing options. It's easy to see where I need more toning, how I could eat better.

But I've come so far.

My bone structure shows more; it turns out my face shape isn't round. That was just the fat covering my true face shape.

I fit comfortably into bus and airplane seats (well as comfortably as one can fit in an airplane seat).

I don't have to go so far out of my way to camouflage my weight.

I have a waistline.

I can walk into LOFT, go to the sale racks and actually find a multitude of options that fit me.

Shopping is an enjoyable experience, and not just a reminder of the fact that I've let myself go.

I have more energy.

I try more things, take more risks.

I'm far more active. In fact, I'm pretty much always on the go until it's time to drop into bed at night.

I crave fruits, vegetables, and other healthy choices.

I can't eat as much junk food. It actually makes me physically ill to eat a fourth of the amount of candy that I used to be able to eat in a sitting. A quick example: last night I broke down and bought one of those movie theater size boxes of candy at Walmart. It was an impulse buy, snagged from a bin labeled 98 cents on the way to the register. I had two handfuls. I actually thought I was going to throw up. I used to be able to down half of one of those boxes in a sitting, if not a whole box.

Yes I have work to do. But I've done so much worth being proud of. I have an awesome support system (seriously--the Facebook and blog comments that people are inspired by me or proud of me mean the WORLD to me).  I have the motivation to carry on. I have the proof that I can do this.

Sometimes all I need to do is step out of my own way. Sometimes all I need to do is shift my focus, to take off those glasses that tint my world dark and put on the ones that tint it a lovely rose color.

[back to the roots]

I apologize for my absence lately. It's been so crazy that I feel like I  haven't had any time to blog. I don't know how people who are even busier than I am find the time to do it.

Anyways.

So life lately has been filled with girls' nights, workplace success and weight loss victories. I'm going to focus more on the last one.

Let's be honest. This blog was founded to focus on my weight loss journey yet somehow that seems to be one of the topics I never talk about anymore. I want to get back to that. Of course there will still be updates about life in general, but I want to try and incorporate more weight loss-related posts. Oh and blog more frequently. That would probably help.

Remember when I went to the Italian festival with Rachel?? When we first met up on Charles Street she squealed that it looked like I had dropped another size. I didn't believe her. I still didn't believe I was down one whole size, let alone two. So I just shrugged and said I didn't know. I mean it was possible that I had dropped another size. I just didn't see it when I looked in the mirror.

The day before the Italian festival, when we were on the beach in Delaware, Katy had made a comment about how tiny I was. I didn't believe her either.

Curiosity took over. I had to know. Was I down a size? Was the mirror lying to me, telling me that I was still pudgy? Or was this all just some sort of dream?

On Wednesday, I got an email from LOFT. That in and of itself is not unusual. But this time the email said they were having sales. Huge, massive end-of-season sales. So I went over my lunch break. I just had to know. I had to know if I really had lost another size.

I picked up clothes mostly in the size I knew I had been wearing. I was too scared. I wanted to know but I didn't want to be disappointed. I picked up a few skirts in the smaller size, rationalizing that skirts always seemed to run bigger on me than pants. I've always had very muscular thighs. Well, until I gained weight and they just turned into lumps. As a result I could frequently get away with a smaller skirt size than I could pant size.

The smaller size skirt fit perfectly.

So I went back out. I circled the sales racks. And circled. And circled. And circled. I pushed some pants around. I picked a few pairs up. I put them back. Finally I grabbed a pair in my current size and their counterparts a size smaller. It was time to face the music, if you will.

Back into the dressing room I went with the pants.

The current size were too big.

The size smaller were just right.

I sat down on the bench in the dressing room and teared up. Well first I did a happy dance. Then I teared up.

Y'all I never thought I would see this size again. I never thought I'd lose more than one pants size.

Suddenly sitting in that dressing room almost in tears I realized that I could do this. No, I realized that I was doing this. My goal finally seemed tangible. This was happening in a very real way.

I can't tell you how I did it. I don't have a diet plan for you. I don't have a list of to eat and not to eat. I don't have any of that.

But I do have this: weight loss is 98% mental. The physical action of working out and the actual eating process are only 2% of this process. The rest is all in your head.

I've learned to slow down. I eat slowly. I taste every flavor, notice every texture.

I've learned to be active. I walk home from work. I work out six days a week. I'm always going and doing something, whether by myself or with friends.

I've learned to eat only when I'm truly physically hungry. I've learned what being physically hungry feels like. I never let myself experience that before. I was constantly eating, trying to fill some void. The void remained and in fact even grew. Instead I filled fat cells.

I've learned that food is fuel. It can provide a powerful boost or it can drag you down.

I've waged war with my old thought patterns. I've defeated the sinister "truths" that I believed for years, those voices that told me I needed to eat, that those cookies would make me feel better. I defeated that voice that told me that a surface-level relationship with God was enough, that I didn't need to move any deeper because there were other things--food and clothing, namely--that would make me whole in a way He never could.

Once those thoughts were banished, the weight started melting off.

More than anything I feel free. I feel like a weight has been lifted, physically, emotionally and mentally.  I don't think about it much anymore. Sometimes the thoughts still work their way back into my brain. After all I listened to them for years. They're not going to totally disappear in a few months. The vast majority of the time though they remain silent, banished entirely from my mentality.

And that my friends, is the secret to losing weight.

It's not a diet plan.

It's not an exercise plan.

It's a shift in mentality. It's a change in how you approach every single aspect of your life. It's a humbling process.

But it is so worth it.