You know what's tough? Self care. Self care is super, super tough.

But when it goes right, it's a great thing.

I've been letting my self-care slide a lot the last few years. I've gotten somewhat better about it in the last year and a half, since I sort-of left the work force and started focusing on work-from-home pursuits, but I've still languished in the land of 'I'll get to it later' on some things for far too long.

One of those is my weight.

I was happy(ish) with my weight once. It was about 12 years ago, and I was under the 200 lb mark for the first time since, well, since I'd been in about 7th grade if I'm being honest. It was a hard-fought size, one that was as much the result of being unable to afford food as conscious diet choices, but it felt great, and I was happy with myself overall. It wasn't long after that I worked my finances out a bit better, and with that came a bit of a weight gain, so that by the time I met Edeyn in real life and we became roomies I was back up to closer to 215 or 220, but overall I was okay with that: I was still in a size 12 to size 14 jean, I looked good in my clothing, and I knew that with a bit of a diet adjustment I could lose it again.

Except I didn't.

By the time I moved back home I was over 280 lbs again, and over the last nine years that's only gone up, and up and up.

When I quit working at my old job I was topping the scales at 380 or thereabouts. To say I hated it, and hated myself in a lot of ways (well, more than usual,) would be putting it lightly.

A few months ago -- maybe 3? 4? I don't remember exactly -- I decided it was well past time I did something about it. So, I set myself a weight loss goal: to get back down to about 180 again. I would cut what I ate as much as I felt I could, I would start exercising more, start drinking more water and less soft drinks, etc.

And you know what? It's working.

I weighed myself yesterday. Since putting myself on my restrictions -- a roughly 1500 calorie a day limit with occasional "cheat" days one every week to two weeks, no more than one 20 oz soda a week or 2 12 oz cans, cutting sugars and more -- I've lost around 55 lbs (give or take a pound or two depending on how I stand on the scale.)

It's a bit rough at times. My energy levels are suffering from the massive calorie deficit I've stuck myself on, and the loss of the caffeine hasn't helped that. My stomach cramps, and I'm constantly fighting the desire to dig through the fridge for something, anything, to munch on.

But it's worth it. My clothes are fitting looser, my fluid levels have went down, I strain less to move around and do things, and can actually do some activities comfortably again I couldn't do as easily before, like shaving my legs.

55 lbs. That's just over a quarter of my total weight loss goal. Woohoo!

I know that it could be argued that this first bit was the easy part. The hard part is going to come as my weight drops lower, my calorie needs drop in tandem with it, and I stop burning through as much fluid weight and focus more and more on the slower-burning but arguably more beneficial to lose fat weight more. But you know what? I think I can handle it at this point.

I'm strong. I'm confident. I'm ready for this.

And I'm already a quarter of the way there. What's another 50 lbs at this point, really?

Wish me luck, people.

Melanie E.