The Mini-Wave

So here we are: Disappearing Weigh-In 1.
I started this a week ago today at 19st 3 lb.
I weighed in this morning at 18st 13.75. The absolute minimum I needed to do to throw myself a man-ego celebration party. So awoohoo - this is me, doing a mini-wave of self-congratulation, as allll the books and programmes tell you to do. Acknowledge the progress, look at where you are and where you were, yadda yadda yadda. Truth is, I feel impatient. Good, moving on, what's next?!

What's next of course is the peculiarly British half-stone marker - 18st 7. For very straightforward reasons, mostly based in mathematics, that feels like a hell of a long way off, and 19 stone feels like one bad decision away.

But, let's not turn this into a wake, shall we? That's not really the mood I'm in or the tone I'm going for. When I did the first Disappearing, I started at 20st 7.5 (oh yes, my Disappearers, I was heavier even than this at one time), and while getting under 19 stone was a big achievement back then, I didn't really feel like I'd started properly Disappearing until I saw the back of 18 stone. The weird thing about that is I was there very recently. I've yo-yo'd a little in the last six to eight months - flirting with 19 stone, losing a stone to get down to 18, and then back up to 19st 3. 18 stone is by no means a good place to be when you're 44 and 5ft 6, but it feels like a whole different world to being 19 stone, so I'm impatient to be gone, to be moving on down, to pass under the half-stone barrier and then push, to break back into the 17s.

I do know of course that being int he 17 stone category is not a good place to be when you're 44 and 5ft 6 either, btu I have sentimental memories of it. It felt remarkably good the first time round, especially hitting 17st 7, because then I'd lost 3 stone, and was beginning to really feel the benefits. I also began to buy clothes off a whole other peg at that point. I'm looking forward to that peg again, but let's keep our heads in the game, folks. So far, just a single week has gone by, and I've officially lost just 3.25 pounds. Is it as good as I was hoping for? No. Is it good enough for week 1? Well, it has to be, doesn't it, because otherwise we're into the territory of the ridiculous - claiming this, that or the other thing has slowed the weighloss down this week, and waaah, waaaah, waaah. No. Let's be clear - 3.25 pounds is more than the medically recommended weekly weightloss, so I have no reason to complain at all. The weird thing will be the fact that I can't actually focus on it for more than the length of a mini-wave, because prolonged self-congratulation (quite apart from being a fairly nauseating habit to get into) can easily become a conviction that you don't need to keep on going, or that you can ease up. Tonight, having done a Starbucks day consisting of much-sitting-on-the-ass, I'm here, watching Gotham, trying to convince myself I can take a night off the biking. Texted d as much, because you have to know what you need, and who's going to give it to you in these situations.
'Get on the bike, honey,' she replied. 'You'll kick yourself if you don't.'

So woohoo - mini-wave, 3.25 pounds, under the first (and shortest!) marker. Here's to the next one, and here's heading to the bike to prove to myself that this wasn't just a one-week mini-Disappearance.

Oh, side-note. Weighed a second time, finding the inch of Nazi discrepancy. That inch still has me at 19st 3. So who really knows? I can only tell you I'm choosing to take the positive results, if nothing else because they keep me going.