www.youtube.com/watch?v=
70Gxho17dPE&feature=related

... and it ends with one, too.

I am back, and today also just so happens to be our 17th wedding anniversary. It's a good day and will be mainly filled with barbecuing and walking and/or playing frisbee, plus we'll probably watch the ballgame but that won't be the centerpiece of the day.

Life has changed since I started losing, and in about a billion ways, many of them subtle. It sometimes seems trivial to note them but they aren't trivial. They add up to meaning. They amass into something. There is there, there.

What's new? Well, for one thing, I'm wearing a pair of size 14 shorts, and a size L tee shirt that is oh so tiny. Two years ago, I'd've been wearing a pair of size 3x or 4x shorts, that is assuming I would've wanted to bare my legs at all, and they would have ridden up the insides of my thighs every time I walked. You know what I'm talking about. And my shirt would have been a nondescript tent in a size, um, 2x, maybe a 3x. Not a lot of choices when you get up there.

I used to shop by fit first, then color and style. There weren't a lot of things up there so I needed to get the cloth to cover my body. Then I'd worry about how it might actually look on me. Now, dare I say it? I actually think of ... style.

It's not a dirty word.

And the barbecue! Check it out! Today's menu: cod, skinless chicken breast, tofu, Yukon Gold potatoes with skin, peppers, three different kinds of mushrooms, onions (all of the aforementioned will go on the grill), and a delightful side salad, served with a skim milk smoothie. The grill stuff is marinated in either Mrs. Dash's salt-free stuff or a combo of balsamic vinegar, garlic and celery seed.

How will the homemade marinade taste? Helfino. But it's an experiment. What's not to love? It's all good stuff.

Most of the food will hit the freezer when the day is done. We'll have barbecue for months, and will add more to the stash as the Summer goes on. There's just something about pulling out barbecue for dinner when it's snowing outside.

And this morning -- it's all affected by my weight loss, or rather by my journey. An omelet made with Egg Beaters. Extra veggies. No, wait, more veggies! Fruit! Fiber One bread with jam!

Oh yeah -- water water water and more where that came from.

How does losing weight affect me? How has the loss affected me? Oh there's more, gentle reader. So much more.

Like walking between tables at a crowded restaurant without having to turn to the side in order to fit. Like paying less for clothes. Like going to a gym instead of hauling myself home for an afternoon of chips, napping and the PC. Like chatting up the fishmonger and getting something good and good for me, and experimenting with new tastes, rather than staying in the same old rut. Like having a former coworker hit on me ("I see your wedding ring is on your middle finger now. Does that mean you're separated?" Uh, no, it means that's the only finger it currently fits on, but nice try just the same.). Like bigger and wackier things like my story being published in my company's newsletter. Like waking up and grabbing the weights first thing, instead of something else. After all, a day without lifting weights is like a day without sunshine, isn't it?

When you look at yourself in a passing mirror, and think, hey, there's less there. Or, get this -- I was standing at the bus stop downtown, eating an apple after having gone to the gym, and caught my reflection in a passing bus. But I initially didn't know it was me. And then I put it together -- apple, that woman was eating an apple. That woman is normal-sized. She's not stuffing herself into clothes as if they were sausage casings. She's not looked at with disdain by anyone because she dares to eat something in public (even something healthy, don't kid yourself, there are people who are nasty enough to make a comment even on THAT if you're obese). She's just a gal.

I am her and she is me, and that faraway look you see in my eyes is me focusing in on my goal like a laser beam.