The first thing I must mention: This picture right here absolutely motivates me. As some people in my Facebook group (Keto This!) have expressed, the scale has not been very encouraging lately. Since the last time I weighed myself, I have gained one pound. But then I look at this before and after picture, and the scale is a liar! I’m still going to weigh myself, but I’m going to rely on the tape measurements, the selfies, and what my body says.

So, I measured myself this week and here are my numbers. My waist is 49.5 inches – that’s a loss of 7.5 inches around my waist. My hips are at 54.5 inches. That’s a loss of 6.5 inches around my hips. That is absolutely amazing. That means on average, I have lost 7 inches around my body as a whole. And I can actually SEE it in the photo above.

Clothes. I’m not quite to the point of buying a new wardrobe, but I am anticipating that I will need to start doing it within the next couple of months. I usually get my pants (jeans) from Lane Bryant. I like the way they make their waists with a little bit of give and elasticity. So my pants are staying up, but the inseam is starting to get a bit much. The waistline of my jeans are maybe 4 inches from my chest. Talk about “mom-jeans”! Now the other pants I have, like my Lucky Brand crop jeans that have a plain waist (not elasticity), I now have to wear a belt. And the inseam, instead of coming up, hangs low. It really makes me laugh. There’s a small part of me that doesn’t quite want to purchase new clothes. A part of me wants to revel in the too-big-for-me clothing.

It was the same with my wedding ring. When I first started losing weight (in the first two weeks), my wedding ring was getting very loose on my finger. At one point, it started flying off my hand just turning over in bed. In all honesty I didn’t want to take it off. I liked the physical feeling and immediate reminder of exactly how much weight I was losing. There was a point though that I just had to stop wearing it.

So I stopped at the gas station to get gas and I was cleaning out my trash in my door. I threw the trash away and my ring slipped right off of my finger into the trash. I said some choice words as I immediately looked into the trash can and did not see my ring. So the contemplation began. I actually contemplated just getting into my car and going home. It had been a long day and this wasn’t making it any better. I figured it was just a material object; I didn’t need it. But I couldn’t leave my ring behind; I just couldn’t. So I dug through that trash. It was so gross. Half emptied beer cans, soda cans, an opened bag of half eaten Jack-in-the-Box meal that I had to look in because what if my ring just happened to fall in there… and of course my ring was at the bottom of the trash in a pool of sticky, luke-warm liquid. I was so grossed out and yet angry at myself for not changing out that ring sooner. I called my husband on my way home to tell him about my day and about the ring. When I got to the part about contemplating leaving it behind, he said to me, “If you left that ring behind, you just might as well keep driving because you wouldn’t be allowed to come home without it.” I love him. He makes me laugh.