Becoming non-fat is weird.
As you become more non-fat, you can feel the not too subtle urges calling you to become thinner, quicker. If I stopped eating X that I enjoy, I'd lose weight faster. My answer to that is: So? Then I'd be a little bit sadder but thinner. I'd rather eat X, thanks.
I do examine the changes to my physique in the mirror because it is fascinating, watching bits not so much suck in as become more saggy, unfortunately. Yes, I can categorically state that my abdominal skin is *knackered*. The stretch marks across my belly may be pale now, but the collagen in my skin was pulled and ripped and destroyed... and it ain't coming back. I now have a handy integral bum-bag, if I would care to have a zip fitted.
When I was younger, and blandly watching TV whilst eating my tea, the two witless posh birds who try to tell people how they should look, Trinny and Susannah, were doing their schtick with a woman who was a bit older, and had had kids. She'd kept her wardrobe full of clothes she could fit in to when she was younger, and wanted to know what to do with them. The aforementioned duo dragged out the bin-liners and chucked them all, soothingly telling the woman that she should accept that she now has a different body shape, and that she's never, ever going to get back in to these clothes. I remember thinking at the time how depressing and miserable that statement was. There's nothing per se wrong with wanting to be thinner, at least to my mind, if you have framed it as wanting to be fitter, the thinner part tends to come along as a matter of course. Instead of suggesting lifestyle changes, the bints suggested wardrobe changes, along with a middle aged flop in to accepting obesity as the norm.
Bollocks.
I am so glad I kept all of my thinner clothes. I certainly can't get in to a few of them, but I'm relieved that my complete lack of fashionable style (I tend to wear very straightforward clothes) means that I can now reach in to the wardrobe and wear my blue needlecords, or my lovely summer tunic things that I bought a few years ago and couldn't even get in to last year! I've got some lovely clothes stacked at the bottom of drawers that await me if I manage to get down to a comfortable size 14. I think, to be honest, it's the fat-person clothes that I'll be chucking (or reusing!)
What's going to happen to my stomach? I don't know how much it's going to shrink back to be honest. McK have discussed me having an operation to chop out the excess and I have to say (amazed though I am that I would even contemplate it) it's possible I might do it at some point. It seems peculiar to me that I have 2 whacking great scars on my neck that I consider to be an important part of 'Who I Am', but that this post-birth war zone is not one that I can be affectionate about. Yes, I am proud to have had my amazing children, no I do not consider the leftover physical damage to be something that I should have to live with or that I should 'celebrate'. Not that I hate it - it's just bloody annoying and frankly, it gets in the way!
There is one other odd and slightly depressing psychological effect happening whilst the weight is gradually transferred in to energy to power my bicycle legs. Every so often my brain normalises my new body image and imprints it, or something. I can tell when that has happened because that's the point when I start thinking, without realising "Christ, you're fat". It's as if women - or, this woman - can never be free of the negative socialised voice belittling them, regardless of what they do to overcome it. So one aspect of me at least will then not be satisfied until the next size down of body changes becomes normalised. Sorry, size 16 is not enough, fatso!
