Body Image, yo.

I keep having these dreams where I'm much thinner, have way better hair, and a much prettier face. Then I wake up and have this kind of "aw, damnit" moment. I want to have more dreams where I'm hideously ugly so I can feel better when I wake up. While I do not feel that I'm beautiful, I don't feel that I'm hideously ugly, either. On the scale from "Hideous" to "Gorgeous" I register somewhere around "Meh".

I've always had face issues because I think I have a weak chin and a very, er, dominant nose. But whatev. I'm not going to start slicing and dicing to make improvements. The body image issue has been my constant companion now for 5 or 6 six years. I went from being an obnoxiously skinny teenager to a plump college student to a plumper adult. See, I thought my metabolism was ALWAYS going to be awesome so I developed unhealthy eating habits and ate way too many incredibly delicious fattening foods as prepared by my annoyingly thin wonderful husband and didn't exercise enough. Then I had two kids.

As Jamie and Adam would say - "There's your problem!"

Fine, I can't blame them forever. At some point "the baby weight" stops being a viable excuse - that point probably being once your child is over a year old. My youngest is a year and a half, by the way. So what do I do? Do I wallow in self pity and self loathing every time some prettier, thinner woman wanders into my line of sight? I've been doing that for the previously mentioned 5 or 6 years and it isn't as fun as advertised. Very recently, I began a calorie reduction diet because a very good friend of mine has had some awesome results doing the very same thing. No more late-night snackin', no more ice cream whenever I feel like it, no more burritos bigger than my head. *sigh* I'm really doing it this time. For about two weeks I have been practicing restraint and started cataloging my daily caloric intake. I've lost a pound.

One pound.

One pound?!

ONE POUND!!!!!

Maybe it seems like nothing, but to me it's freaking awesome! It's the first time in a LOOOOONG time that I've stood on a scale and noted a weight loss. And to be perfectly clear, I do not have plans to look like a stick figure. I want to just get back into the "healthy" range for a woman of my height. I want my stupid Mii on Wii Fit to stop doing that annoying "Boy-oing" thing and slapping it's rotund sides once it's done calculating my BMI. I want to like how I look. I was there, once upon a time, and I can get there again.

Woot!