Project Me

I regret to tell you that all the projects I'm currently working on are still things I can't share publicly, which is very rare for me and, I hope, something that's not likely to happen again soon. I'm trying my best to get these secret projects wrapped up so at the very least I'll have something to talk about on the blog (though it will of course feel good to get those deadlines dealt with as well).

Because I can't really talk about my knitting, I want to talk about a different sort of project today, and that's me. Over the past six months or so, I've really been making a concerted effort to get healthier, and it's not something I've really talked about online until now. The story really starts about a year and a half ago, when I went in for my annual physical and blood work and learned that my cholesterol was borderline high. At the time, I thought I would adjust my diet to deal with it, so for the next year or so, I pretty much stopped eating all meat and added more vegetables. But when the next year's testing came around, my cholesterol not only hadn't gone down, it actually went up. So I figured that more drastic measures were needed, and I resolved to lose weight.

My original goal was to lose 20 pounds, which would more or less get me back down to the weight I was when I graduated from high school, before I gained the college "Freshman 15" (really more like 10 for me) and weight that never came off after having Rainbow. I knew I wanted to do it in a healthy, realistic way, so I used the Fitbit app to count the calories I was consuming (something I'd never done before) and made smarter choices about what I ate. And of course I tried to be more physically active, which meant making exercise a priority when time allowed for it and spending less time sitting around and knitting, I'm sorry to say.

It's now been about six months since I first started the process, and I'm down 18 pounds. But it really isn't about the number on the scale; what's more important is that I feel better. My clothes fit better; in fact, some are now way too big and some items that haven't fit me in a long time are now comfortable. I feel like I'm consistently making healthier choices about what I eat, and I've noticed that my digestive issues are less of a problem than they used to be. I can even drink coffee again without feeling horrible afterward! And I'm seeing muscles where I only saw flab before, and generally I feel stronger and more physically able to do things. Most of all, I feel more comfortable in my own body, and I don't feel like I need to hide myself behind loose clothing. That self-confidence has been more than worth it.

So where do I go from here? Well, I anticipate that if I stay on track with my diet, I'll hit my weight loss goal in another month or so. But that doesn't mean I'm going to slip back into my old ways of eating whatever I want and sitting around a lot, and certainly I'll have to wait until my next cholesterol test to see if it's really been effective. But I do think it's been a massive success for me in the way that I feel about myself, and certainly in that way it's the only diet that's ever been a success for me. I've realized that it isn't about how much you weigh or what size you wear, it's about feeling healthy, confident, and comfortable in my own skin. And while it's great that I've lost the weight, that's really secondary.

Because this is a knitting blog, and not a weight loss or health blog, I'll leave you with a picture of pretty yarn that I'm using for one of my secret projects. I think it's okay to show you this, given that the final pattern will use different colors, but all you can see is the yarn (the WIP is off camera):

How do you like my Rainbow-original window ledge decorations?

Have a great weekend!