A month, exactly – eek! Sorry!

I was doing better, losing a teensy bit of weight – and then Halloween happened. As usual, I went to New Orleans with my best friends, and yeah...several bags of candy and Cafe du Monde happened. So yeah. I'm back to where I was, still maintaining.

And I'd kind of resolved to try to just maintain now through the holidays. It was this time last year that I kinda fell off the wagon – I had real sugar! I had white bread! I had fried foods! – because, hey, it's Thanksgiving, hey, it's Christmas. And those aren't just one day a month, oh no, everybody has to celebrate at least one other time, whether it's with friends or folks at work. So yeah. It's hard to eat healthfully when you can't really plan your menu as carefuly as you typically do, and it's hard to eat healthfully when you kind of... have to eat someone else's food so you won't be considered rude? Hey, this is the South, after all.

But I'm still going to Zumba, still taking clogging lessons, still trying to hit the gym as much as possible and avoid the obviously terrible things for me.

It's work in progress.

Speaking of that, I read this column yesterday and it had a huge impact on me. If you want to lose weight, or you have lost weight, it's a must-read.

Some of her views are a bit defeatist for me, but then again, if she's yo-yo dieted for a while now, I can understand how she believes weight loss is most likely not permanent.

But she makes an important point that really hit home with me. She said before, when she was obese, her weight made her invisible. Now that she's a size 12, she said, people feel they can comment about her body to her – folks will tell her she's fat, etc.

AMEN TO THIS.

This has been one thing that's really shocked me since I went from a size 16 to a size 10: people talk to me about my body all the time. They never did before. It was almost taboo, you could tell. If someone had to say something about what I was wearing, etc., they'd sugarcoat it or say something quickly and move on.

Now, it's almost a daily thing. Most people – even if I see them every single day – say something nice. And that's nice to hear. But my pet peeve is when people tell me I'm "wasting away" or "getting skinny!" when I've basically stayed within 10 pounds of my current weight for much of 2012.

And there are, of course, the rare person who's like, HA, you're still overweight. So yeah, even if you have a nice comment or a not-so-nice comment about your body... people are still talking about your body.

If I thought I was self-concious before, man, I really am now. That's something I didn't expect.

So, here I am, still where I was, weight-wise, and about to go into the holidays.

I'm thankful that I've been able to come as far as I have. I'm thankful for those who've been kind and encouraged me. I'm thankful for the yummy – and sometimes healthy, sometimes not – food I'm going to have in the next two months.

But I hope I can keep my momentum up. This path sure ain't easy. Wish me luck.