Putting on a freshly washed pair of skinny jeans is the best way to ruin your day.

Seriously.  Like, I swear they were loose yesterday.  Ugh.

Sometimes I put them on without buttoning them up and do lunges around my room to stretch them out.  Sometimes I just dig through the laundry and find the least gross pair that's already been stretched out.

My muffin top plans its escape as soon as the zipper gores up.

So to cheer myself up let me tell you this: there has been PROGRESS.  How exciting.  I weighed myself a few weeks ago and was down to 170lbs.  So 4lbs isn't a whole lot, but I've noticed my body feels different.  My jeans fit a little better around the waist even though I might have only lost an eighth of an inch, tops.  My tummy also looks different.  Instead of looking like a half a hard boiled egg stuck to my gut, it looks like half a hard boiled egg with the sides pinched in.  I can also see my ribs and parts of my hip bones.  Hurrah!  

The best part is the increase my fitness ability.  I've been running/jogging intervals of 4-6km a day on my treadmill with 2lb hand weights.  When I started I could only go for 30 seconds, now I can sustain a jog for almost 9 minutes.  I'm also getting muscles where I never knew there were muscles in my legs and my arms.  WEIRD.

Like this one.

Aaaaand this one.

I'm trying really hard to focus on this particular stuff.  Looking at the measurements and the scale, there isn't really much change at all; there definitely isn't the kind of body melting off progress I saw when I was on a ketosis diet.  So instead I need to pay attention to the other cues: muscles, fitness, feeling better, feeling stronger.  A lot of the time its so easy to focus on the numbers that its hard to realize all the other stuff that's happening.  Instead of honing in on end goals like size and looks, I need to make sure I keep focusing on having being fit, being healthy, and just feeling better as my main priorities.  This is what is important, these are the good things to strive for.  It really doesn't matter what size I am, it just matters that I feel good and have the physical ability to do all the things I want to do.

I am getting better.  For realsies.  This means I definitely can't give up.