It’s Fish Time!!

80 lb Black Grouper.  Photo courtesy of Emeraldcharters.com

OH YEAH! That’s one bigass fish, an EIGHTY POUND FISH to be exact!  You know how this works, that means I have finally reached my next goal of losing EIGHTY POUNDS!  Omg…

I remember when my mother came to visit me two years ago and she had lost EIGHTY POUNDS (yes I do plan on putting that in caps every time because I am that excited), I thought she looked like a totally different person.  I wish I saw that in myself still, I get glimpses sometimes where I think HOLY SHIT that’s not the same face that used to look back at me, but not often enough.

I love those moments.

I remember looking at her and feeling a mixture of pride and jealousy.  I was so proud of her for having the willpower and motivation to lose so much weight, she is my mother and I love her.  Another side of me was jealous when she shopped for those tiny clothes, I couldn’t help it.

I also remember thinking that it was a totally impossible goal for me, that there was no way in hell I could ever lose that much weight, especially since I had to lose almost twice that much to get to a weight where I’d be considered ‘normal’.

Remember a while back when I did my Confessions of a Fat Girl post and gave the comparison of me before and after having lost 50 lbs?  I have looked at that side by side shot about a million times since then to try to keep me motivated.  I wish I’d taken full body shots along the way, but I didn’t.  The face shots help keep me going though because for some reason what I don’t see in the mirror, I can see when looking back at old photos.

While looking through an album from my trip with Penny to the Christmas Market in Cologne, I saw a photo she had taken of me that day.  I sat there for a moment in a bit of shock because I found it so hard to look at myself again.  To think that there was a time when I found that version of myself to be acceptable enough to not do anything about it, it horrified me.  This is going to be my new motivation photo.

Left: Me in 2008 at 308 lbs.  Right: Me this week at 227 lbs.  Almost 81 lbs lost.

I chose the one on the right because it’s the most recent photo of me, taken on Thursday by a friend while we were out painting ceramic gifts for Christmas.

I can’t seem to stop obsessing about how fat my arms are in it, but that’s what weight issues do to you.  No matter what the achievement, there is always something to remind you that you aren’t done yet.  I hear that no matter how much you lose or how small you get that those issues never seem to go away, that makes me a little sad.  The good things far outweigh the bad though, so I will just have to deal with those nagging little voices in my head.

I still have a long way to go, and I try to not think of the fact that I have lost so much weight and am still at a stage where other women consider themselves to be disgusting and huge and in need of a diet.  I am proud of the weight I’ve lost in spite of that evil fatty inside of me that keeps trying to bring me down.

Just to keep up with tradition, do you know what else weighs 80 lbs?

320 sticks of butter!! Try carrying that around for a day and see how good it feels.  I don’t think I could again!

The average Bernese Mountain Dog, that is a lot of dog.  Photo from random internet search, couldn’t find original owner.

Rachel Zoe in this photo from US Magazine in January of this year. Yikes.  I’ve lost an entire human’s worth of weight!  If I ever take the weight loss that far, please stage an intervention.

So now the journey continues.  Time to push on to 90 lbs and then, the big ONE OH OH!  Now that will be a celebration indeed!!