Not yet one year.  It’s been 42 weeks or 294 days.  Now there are 70 days, or 10 weeks, to go before it’s been one complete year documenting this journey.  During this time, I’ve enjoyed doing this more than I expected I might.

In fact, I almost backed out when I fully realized that strangers and people I know IRL (in real life) might be reading such personal updates.  Since I have this blog fed directly onto my Facebook page and Twitter, it is true that friends from high school and college, professional colleagues, blogging friends, and family have access to the information.

I know that the vast majority do not read, but the ones who do give me more support than I imagined was possible.  Thank you.  For being such a shy person up until my 30’s, I certainly have gotten loud and forward with everything that is going on in my life....and it has benefited me tremendously.

Confession Time:

I have to be honest.  I stopped keeping track of everything I eat sometime back in August.  However, my iPhone still beeps at me each evening to remind me that I haven’t logged any meals that day.  I do still use it to look up meal offerings at popular restaurants.  Other than the temporary 5-pound spike which followed the conference in Philadelphia, things have been going well on the scale.

Eight months of documenting each calorie, each bit of carbohydrates, each gram of fat, all the protein.  Learning how to read labels and estimate quantities.  It has been a good “on the job” education which will guide the rest of my life.

I am no longer hiding my head in the sand.  I am no longer avoiding mirrors.  I am no longer stuffing down anger and sadness (well, most of the time anyways).  I am recognizing how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go.

Personal Awareness:

Last month there was a Harris Interactive/HealthDay report which revealed that “30 percent of people [polled] who are overweight think that they’re normal size.”

But what is “normal”?  According to a dictionary definition, normal means conforming with, constituting a standard, or not abnormal.  Normal means being approximately average or within certain limits.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [as reported in the HealthDay article], 34% of adults aged 20 and older are obese, and 34% are overweight.  That means that only 32% are of normal weight or are underweight.  So being overweight seems to be the “average” or “norm” in our society.

As quoted by HealthDay: "I think too many people are unsure of what they should actually weigh," said Keri Gans, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "For many, they have grown up in a culture were most people are overweight and that is the norm, or they have been surrounded by too many celebrities and fashion in the media and think very thin is the norm."

Making Changes: