Sticker Shock

or How Much Is that Bimbo in the Mirror?

Something has happened to me over the past few months, just as I've been closing in on 70 pounds down, normal weight, and looking and feeling really good.

A couple of months ago, I had to go shopping for new pants. None of my pants fit any more, not even my 15-year-old “skinny” pants. So I went shopping, thinking that I would be delighted to get back into a nice pair of 14s.

The 14s were clearly too big, so I picked up a pair of 12s. The 12s were just a bit loose. Somehow, however, I couldn't bring myself to try a size 10. My daughters wear size 10, and it would be too much of a shock for my brain to go there.

I bought some size 12s, and they'll certainly do me over the winter, even if they are pretty darned loose around the waist.

I came home and saw my daughter's blue corduroys in the wash. I picked them up and put them on, and they actually fit. A bit tight just out of the wash, perhaps, but overall a good fit.

Then I put on some rocking tunes, my new jeans, and danced around the dining room. I reveled in my reflection in the sliding glass door, dancing. Could that really be me, there, that leggy curvaceous person with the impish grin on her face?

Another double-take. I catch glimpses of my own body — my figure striding by a shop window, my leg draped over my husband's chest, my naked shoulder out of the corner of my eye — and I think “Who is that? It can't be me!”

A while ago, someone casually mentioned that it's hard to know what your rear end looks like. That got me curious about the view of my current backside. After my next shower, I twisted around so I could see my butt in the mirror.

“Aughh! It looks like a come-on for a porn site!”

I made a face at the bimbo in the mirror and stalked off to get dressed.

Meanwhile, I've been essentially plateauing for the past few months. The moving averages show me losing about a pound, a pound and a half a month, way below the 3-pound-per-month pace that has been my average during the past 2 years.

162 gets me to 70 pounds down, and I think there's something about that number that just makes my brain go "Whoa! I can't deal with that! Hold up and let me catch my breath, will you?"

So I've been doing that, trying to stay with my program and not stressing too much about the current plateau. In this long journey, my mind and my body probably deserve the occasional rest period, time to re-group, catch up on any nutrition I've missed doing the slow starvation of getting weight off, and getting used to my new size.

I kept touching down at 163.8 and then bouncing back up again. I decided maybe I needed to visualize some numbers below 162, to re-set my brain so it doesn't wig out so much. I imagined 158, 154, 151, 148, 145, 142, 138. (Anything below 142 is probably too light for my frame. I've been 138 as an adult, but wasn't healthy at that weight.)

This week, I broke through the barrier and have stayed there.  Still, I need to reckon with the bimbo in the mirror, to adjust my image of myself to what registers on my eyeballs.

That bimbo in the mirror used to make trouble for me, back when I was a young woman engineer trying to be taken seriously. I can delight in her power and her lush sexuality, but she can also get in the way when I want to be seen for myself, and not my container.