For honesty's sake, I feel the need to share the following:

When I said in my last post that I'd gained 10 lbs, I was actually lying. I didn't know it at the time, but the number of pounds I thought I'd gained this year was far from the truth.

I haven't gained an ounce since the last time I weighed myself, about 4 months ago.

I was shocked and amazed when I stepped on the scale yesterday and the number was exactly the same as it had been all that time ago. I even turned the scale off and on again and weighed myself one more time to make sure it was correct. Same number.

Isn't it fascinating how we build these things up in our heads? All semester, I'd been convinced that I'd put on pounds. As a result, I was terrified of stepping on the scale to see if I was actually right, so I avoided it like the plague. It's kind of the same thing as when I avoid checking the balance of my bank account because I think I don't have any money, only to see that I DO have money and all is right with the world. I am such a paranoid freak.

It's amazing how bad experiences on the scale and with my bank account can elicit this silly fear in me and so many of us.

I remember the early days of this blog, when I was on WW and had a weekly weigh-in. The truth--AKA the number on the scale--was right there for me to see. It was encouraging to see the numbers decrease as the years went on, and I had a secure sense of how I was doing with my weight loss goals. In a strange way, I actually looked forward to my weigh-ins. The farther I get from that place, where my weight-loss was at the forefront of my life, the less I want to know what that number is. As I continue my life's journey, the act of losing weight becomes increasingly more difficult for physiological and emotional reasons. Smaller people lose weight much more slowly, but more than that, the truths about my past and present that I continue to explore become much harder to bear. I ignore them out of fear for what they really mean and how I and others will react to my exploring them.

Perhaps it's this fear of the truth that's prevented me from losing this last 50-ish pounds and not the self-acceptance or complacency I've told myself it was. I'm honestly not sure what it is, but I know that through the struggle to find the answers I can only grow (and shrink) in the best ways possible.

The process of opening myself up to the truth is scary as hell, whether or not I allow myself to do it. Regardless, maybe it's time to let it happen...