Black and white

Current weight: 200.6

So I took pictures of myself last night to add to my weight-loss spreadsheet -- I'm telling you, it's really a work of art. In any case, it was a complete eye-opener.

When you used to be 270 pounds and your size 22 pants were getting tight, being 200 pounds and a size 14/16 feels skinny sometimes. And when I suck in my tummy, and thanks to certain undergarments, I can look pretty good, if I say so myself.

I've become complacent. It's very easy to maintain the weight I'm at. I can screw up once in a while, and clean up for a few days and I'm right back where I was. I often think that where I'm at is plenty good enough. I want to shout: "But I've lost 70 pounds from my highest weight! I'm at the weight I was in college! What more do you want from me?"

You would think that wanting to do triathlons alone would motivate me. After all, I *can* swim. I *can* my bike at this weight; I've ridden 55 miles in a day already. I *can* jog, if slowly and frequently causing injury.

Only, I know in the back of my mind, that I'm not going to be able to do triathlons as fast as I want to -- or even longer, hillier courses at all -- if I don't get rid of some of this weight. It wears on the body, having to haul extra pounds up hills or for longer distances.

I haul in buckets for the furnace, and they are 35 pounds each. The other day, I thought about trying to bike a hilly triathlon carrying that bucket on my back. It seemed impossible. Yet that is precisely what I would be doing.

But seeing that photo last night, of me in a tank top without sucking in my stomach ... I couldn't believe it! Where did all that belly come from? When did I get so fat? I thought I was relatively skinny now! But this was cold, hard evidence of my blubber.

I've long seen it on TV programs that overweight people truly don't realize how big they are. There is a LOT of truth in that. Our minds will convince ourselves that it's not really that bad. The image we see in the mirror is not like what others see. It's the exact opposite of women with eating disorders, who see themselves as fat no matter how thin they get.

How many times do we see a picture of ourselves and we're shocked at it? Or worse, have to see ourselves on video?

But I took my evidence of my blubber and imported it on my super awesome spreadsheet. It's next to a graph that shows my weight loss for January. I will have graphs that show my weight loss every month as I go along. I am looking forward to taking March's picture and then seeing the progress after several months.

And here's the positive to my spreadsheet: It tells me that I can absolutely meet my goal of weighing 175 by July 26. It tells me that's 165 days away, or an average loss of 0.2 pounds per day (1.4 pounds per week). I even have a graph that shows my current weight against the weight I have to lose so that I can tell if I'm on track.