Before and After

As I considered this post, I found myself perpetually holding off, waiting for the day that I hit my goal weight and had months of toning under my belt. I wanted to have the perfect photos taken with perfect lighting and perfect hair and happy, smiling faces all around.

And, well, that's not gonna happen any time soon. Life is just that: life. While perfection is a great goal to strive for, accepting reality -  I get my picture taken by a 6 year old, by my husband trying to corral the kids while begging for smiles all around, or I do it myself, in a dirty mirror with hat head - is probably going to be a much wiser choice.

No, I'm not in the ideal shape yet. I still have 15 pounds to drop. There have been days where I've been completely successful. There have been days I've succumbed to the cravings. All in all, I've made steady improvements and watched the scale dutifully move toward the weight I hope to achieve.

BUT - I've lost 60 pounds since July 2011. I started at a size 22 (stuffing myself into stretched out 18's). I currently wear (in most lines of clothing) a 12/14. I was an XXL on top. I'm still an XL in most tops, but occasionally, I find an L that fits nicely. In dresses, I wear a 14 when they are sized numerically. If they are sized alphabetically, I wear an L.

For those of you who follow this blog, many of these pictures will be familiar. I still want to get it down on "paper" in a comprehensive way and acknowledge the achievement rather than only see what's left to be done.

Last summer at Six Flags. This was my "skinny" outfit. Meaning, I felt this outfit made me look the best out of all the clothes I owned at the time.

That's my tummy in the edge of the picture.

And just in case you couldn't see it in it's full glory in the above picture...

 And now:

Hiking at Del Valle.

"Ice skating" in Tahoe.

Here's me in the same outfit as the last picture from above.