On recognising my own achievements

Today I have been doing the internal equivalent of a Kermit the frog arm flail from excitement because I reached a major goal on my weight loss journey. So, yes, I look a bit like this but just not as green or as skinny...yet!

It’s been really interesting to talk to people recently. Everyone is being really encouraging about the weight loss journey and I am grateful to everyone who takes the time to say something. But here’s the thing. Sometimes people say things that they mean in an encouraging way but they come out a bit differently. So, for example, someone I know keeps on telling me that I am so skinny. And I have lost a lot of weight but there is no way that I am skinny. There is still plenty of work to be done. Still at least another 20kgs. At least. Or there was the man in the coffee shop the other week who told me that not only did I look so much better but that I was a much nicer person now. What the heck does that even mean? I am the same person that I was, same personality. The fact that they didn’t rate me before potentially says something about them rather than me.

But I do find myself thinking about how I recognise my own achievements. Most of the time when someone says to me “oh my goodness you have lost so much weight”, my instant reaction is to almost dismiss the compliment with a comment along the lines of I have so much more to go. It’s not like I can’t see the weight loss now. It took me a long time but I can definitely see the changes in my face and certain parts of my body. For example, I love the fact that I can see and feel my collarbones now and I like to feel my shoulder bones just because I can!!

What I don’t want to do is get to the point where I think that I am done now. If I stayed at my current weight could I be happy? Probably. But the fact is that I want to get lower. My next goal is now another 5kgs away and then 5kgs after that etc. Right now I can walk into a normal clothes shop and find stuff that fits, not everything, but some at least. Another 10kgs and I should be able to walk in and buy almost anything.

I worry far more about things like what to wear when than I ever used to. It’s a bit odd really. I had a conversation with a friend a couple of days ago about how it is more about taking pride in your appearance. I’ve been buying new clothes, shoes, accessories and it has been fun but it’s also a bit strange. Does it really matter what you wear when and wear? Apparently in my new world it does. And it did in my old world as well but it was different. Part of the reason why it was different is that I couldn’t recognise myself properly. Not sure if that makes sense but let me try and show you an example and hopefully that will help. A couple of months ago now I cleaned out my wardrobe. I got rid of almost everything I had in there that was too big now and there was a huge pile of clothes. If you had of asked me about those clothes I would have said that I had some favourite clothes that I liked to wear but I wouldn’t have necessarily said that I had much in the way of nice clothes. A friend’s sister came to look through the clothes that I had and took the vast majority of them and she was rapt. She kept on saying oh my goodness, there are so many nice clothes here.

I guess what it comes down to at the moment is that I am trying to work out what my new normal feels like. And it does feel very different to my old normal. I feel much better emotionally and much better physically but there are some days when it just feels very strange.

And in the hopes of recognising my own achievements here are a couple of photos which show the transformation so far. The photos where I am wearing the purple shirt were taken in July last year. At that point I had already lost around 10kgs. The photos where I am wearing pink were taken two or three weeks ago. I would totally make the one where I am standing sideways my Facebook profile photo if I didn't think it would look a bit weird.

Probably should have done my hair properly before taking these photos and cleaned up the bedroom. Oh well, next time.