Celebrating a total of 20 pounds gone, and a 6 book giveaway!

First, the books. I've read each of the books I'm giving away and they have helped me understand what approaches will and will not work for me personally in the long run. I'm ready to let these titles go and I hope they can be useful to someone else.

Crave: Why You Binge Eat and How to Stop by Cynthia M. Bulik
Potatoes not Prozac by Kathleen DesMaisons
The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program by Kathleen DesMaisons
The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous
Food for Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elizabeth L.
For Today (another OA daily readings book)

If you are interested in any of these titles, simply send me an email at too.much.input.blog@gmail.com with your name and mailing address by March 7. I'll mail up to two books per person, anywhere in the world. Whoever requests a particular book first will receive it. All books are like new: no marking or highlighting, covers in great condition, etc.

Since I am such a bookworm, I'm celebrating my loss of 20 pounds with a new office bookshelf I've been wanting for a long time. :D

I'm certainly losing weight slooooowly:

Get your own graph at skinnyr

I started graphing my weight on August 15, 2011 at 275 pounds. I joined a gym and experimented with Paleo and low carb eating, and lost ten pounds by mid-September. Then I stalled out. I determined I wasn't going to do Paleo all the way and my gym activity slowed down too. I felt pretty lost and dejected. My triumph throughout Halloween-Thankgiving-Christmas-New Year's was simply maintaining instead of gaining it all back and then some. After reading "Brain Over Binge" in mid-January of this year, I got going again in earnest and now a month and a half later, I'm down another ten pounds. I hope to keep going now with no more four-month "breaks"--slow and steady is fine by me.

More than reaching any particular number on the scale, I want to change my brain and banish all binge eating. And I'm happy to say that things are heading in that direction! New lows on the scale give me excitement, but binge-free days give me peace and functionality.

Celebrating another 5 lbs gone with plus-size lingerie (yikes!)

The gym scale said 260 tonight, so that's a total of 15 pounds gone since I started this blog weighing 275.

The scale is silly, as we all know. There are a million factors that can make the number swing by 2 or 3 or even 4 pounds from one day to the next. I don't weigh at the same time of day, naked, etc. I weigh when I go to the gym, regardless of what I'm wearing, what I've eaten or drank that day, and where I'm at in my menstrual cycle. I know not to take it too seriously; the scale is just an imperfect indicator that tells me whether I'm heading in the right direction or not.

It could say 261 or 262 tomorrow. But I've decided every time I see a new low ending in "0" or "5", I'm celebrating. With Valentine's Day coming up, this is how I decided to to celebrate:

Fairly tame, right? But I like it for Valentine's Day; it's got little red hearts on the cups. It's from hipsandcurves.com, and they have lots of cute things and a wide range of sizes and price points. I've never (NEVER!) bought lingerie before, but if I like this item I will probably order from them again in the future. (By the way, I have no connection to the Hips and Curves people--I'm not getting paid in any way to mention them.)

Because here's the deal: I may not honestly *feel* sexy enough to strut around in lingerie, but I am certain that a big girl in lingerie *is* sexier than a big girl in a sloppy t-shirt and lounging pants, especially if Big Lingerie Girl is wearing some lipstick and a smile. So I thought I'd give my husband (and myself) something different from my usual college t-shirt and pajama bottoms this Valentine's Day.

Also, I'm tired of saying "someday" or "after I lose weight." Someday is here. The time to push against the boundaries of my comfort zone is now!

Ladies of all sizes, I ask you: what are you doing this Valentine's Day to celebrate whatcha got right now?