Fortunately, I have been keeping up with the exercise, diet and tracking. I've really noticed some changes today (my clavicle is starting to show again), this week (my arms are looking sleeker), the past few weeks (as Gabe put it: "You went from having a badonk-adonk-adonk-adonk to just a badonk-adonk!" LOL!)
The scale is still messing with me - though, I am happy to say that it's less and less every day. While I am weighing myself periodically, I'm not feeling like I've been kicked in the stomach - even if the numbers don't reflect how hard I've been working or how much better I look. I also haven't taken my measurements in weeks. I'm making a concerted effort to focus less on all of the numbers and more on how I feel and how I look to MYSELF at the moment. When you have as far to go as I do, that mental recalibration seems to be of the utmost importance.
One thing that is incredibly annoying however, is my tummy. I tend to carry a lot of weight in that miserable lower ab area. What's frustrating about this is that as much as my legs, arms, badonk and waist shrink, if I don't target the lower abs, my clothes don't fit that much better. I mean, of course they do fit better...but no matter how much smaller everything else is, you've still gotta zip up the pants and try to minimize the appearance of the tummy with longer shirts and whatnot. Even when I was skinny, this area drove me nuts. While I know it isn't small by any means, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if my mind was actually blowing it out of proportion.So, while I have been targeting my abs 2-3x/week, and I've been working to burn fat in general all over my body (cause if you're not getting rid of the fat, I've noticed that stronger ab muscles can actually make the belly even more prominent if you're not careful!)...it's just not enough. I also have to work on my posture. Just sitting up and standing up straight minimizes the look of that trouble area.
Another thing I've been doing is "sucking it in" while at work, watching tv, reading, sitting at my desk (yep, I'm doing it now). This too helps with the posture and apparently every ten seconds of suckage counts as a sit-up. Win!
Improving my posture also seems to put the "girls" back to where they belong - well, as much as they can be, now that I'm in my 30s...that should also help to pull the attention away from other less svelte spots too.
All in all, things are still progressing relatively well. I'm in a good headspace at the moment. I'm content and motivated at the same time and - for the first time in who the heck knows how long - I'm not beating myself up about what I haven't managed to accomplish yet. I'll get there if I let myself.
