After two weeks of meticulous calorie counting and so much exercise my activity tracker is actually sending me scolding messages, I've lost five pounds. I can't tell you how happy I am to be five pounds lighter. I also can't tell you how astonished I am at how happy I am that I'm five pounds lighter.

Ten years ago five pounds would have been nothing. When I was young I gained and lost five pounds on a weekly basis. Eating fewer french fries resulted in a five pound weight loss. One good day at the gym netted me five pounds lost. Now that I'm in my forties, five pounds is a MAJOR accomplishment resulting from a seemingly herculean effort.

It does not help that in the same time that I've slaved over my five pounds, my flat mate, Corrine, has dropped 11.5 pounds. Granted, she's larger, but, more importantly, she's younger. A lot younger. Like, could-be-my-beautiful-and-more
-talented-daughter younger. So, while I've lost 2 percent of my body weight, she's lost more than twice that eating the same stuff and exercising less.

Is this depressing? It could be, but I choose to give it a different spin. If it is this hard to lose five pounds in my early forties, imagine how much more difficult it will be to lose the weight in my fifties. Or my sixties. And imagine how much more weight I would need to lose if I don't do it now. So while I envy Corrine her metabolism, I'm choosing to act now so that the next five pounds will be hard but not impossible.