When I started this journey in January, I had a BMI of 37.37 and was obese. After a lot of work learning how to eat proper portion sizes, enough calories, and getting off my butt to move more, I’ve finally reached a BMI of 24.9. My end goal is a BMI between 21-22 and I still have 20 lbs to go to reach that. Today I wanted to celebrate though. For the first time in 14 years, I’m “normal”.

Thank the gawds for Calorie Counting. I don’t think I ever would have reached this milestone without it.

I’d like to take a moment to feed my delusions and say “I’m not a big clothes horse“. Oh, I know. When I was larger my closet was stuffed full of clothes and I could go weeks without wearing the same outfit twice. But I like to pretend that I was never that bad.

Growing up, I remember my mum had closets (yes – multiple closets) filled with clothes for every occasion in every fabric or colour imaginable. Using her as my model for “clothes horse”, I can happily state I have never been that bad. Granted, that’s mostly because I never had the room in our houses to maintain closets like that. Of course, last time I was home, I think mum had culled her closets significantly. I know the extra large wardrobe/closet that used to be in the bedroom is no longer there and the walk in closet seems empty in comparison to childhood memory.

Since losing weight & working on increasing my fitness levels, I’ve donated dozens of bags of clothes to charity shops. Many of the items donated were purchased at second hand stores over the course of the past few months. I’m Scottish. I’m cheap. Oh, and I refused to pay full price (or even sale price) for clothes I’d only fit into for a month. You see, I’ve dropped 7 sizes in the last 9 months and I certainly couldn’t keep any of the clothes in my tiny little mouse house. There’s just no room to store them. [Donation side note : Except for the bag of clothes I’m keeping for my sister to pick through when she visits in a few months.]

A few weeks back I picked up some new (yes! new!) dress pants for fall. A whopping 5 pairs. That’s it. That’s my entire dress pant wardrobe for work. Except… I’ve shrunk out of 2 of the pairs already. So I’m down to three pairs of pants I can wear to work. Add to that 3 blouses. And a tonne of workout clothes. A half closet full to be precise.

Which leads me to the conclusion It’s getting cold outside and I must go shopping. I loathe shopping for clothes but since I have no

• fall jacket
• winter coat
• sweaters
• turtlenecks
• long johns/tights

Or I could avoid the stores and just wear the hubby’s clothes. That’s not such a bad idea after all. The man has lined jeans and very warm winter coats. I’m sure he won’t notice I’ve stolen his warm clothing when he’s home in November and February for tour breaks…  

So I guess I better go shopping soon. Not a good idea to be without warm clothes as a prairie winter approaches.

I’m 3 lbs away from reaching the top end of the height/weight scale. That means I’m 3bs away from reaching the magical #25 on the BMI chart.

I’m very proud of myself at the moment because I’ve managed to reach this goal a few months earlier than I had expected to in my original lifestyle change plans. It’s a pretty steady weight loss of about 1.8 lbs a week. Some weeks I lost more (i.e. in the beginning) and other weeks I’ve lost little (0.2 or 0.4 lbs). I haven’t plateaued *knock wood* yet.

I still have another 20 lbs to lose before I reach my end goal BMI of 21.5-22. I’m quite happy with my new projected goal date of Feb 2011. It co-incides with my hubby’s second tour break. He’ll get a look at the new me in a few months when he’s home in November.

Time to celebrate the little victories I think.

I started my journey in January with a BMI of 37.37.

I look at that number now and still can’t believe it was that high. Granted, I only needed to lose 14 lbs to go from Obese Class II to Obese Class I, but it’s still a staggering thing to think about. I remember doing a giant happy dance in my basement when I went from Obese Class I to Overweight on the BMI chart.

Today my BMI is 26. In a few short pounds I’m going to have a healthy BMI (assuming I have a “normal” fat/muscle ratio) for the first time in 14 years. I’m very excited. Perhaps more so than when I dropped 4 shirt sizes and 5 pant sizes.

My goal is to keep my BMI between 21 and 22. That’s approximately another 26 lbs to lose. I may even get there by Christmas at the rate I’m going.

Wow. Just Wow!

School is about to start back up in a few weeks so I’m going to have to make a conscious effort to eat properly and make time for exercise. Some days that’s a challenge when I’m working full-time but once I add classes back into the mix I tend to have no idea where my time goes.

I’m approaching my end goal far quicker than I expected. I’ve been averaging 1.6 lbs lost each week since I started back in January and never really plateaued. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad sign for when I move into maintenance. I do think it’ll start to slow down a bit now as I move into the last 20 (or 30) lbs.

Based on what others write in the forums, I think the last 10 lbs might actually take me months to lose. It’ll be a strange experience considering I lost the first 60 lbs in 8 months.

60 lbs. What a huge number. I hate to admit I had that much – and more – to lose. Hopefully I’ll manage to successfully keep it off in the years to come.