Slump.

So I haven't checked in as much as I would have liked to. This is the end of the trimester, and things are crazy. It's hard to find time to do anything, much less blog and pull my hair out as I try to get it to upload on a 19 kbps connection.

Grocery shopping and cooking have gone out the window, too. I was doing a really good job of preparing breakfast and lunch the night before to ensure that I was eating a variety of foods that I liked. I was having different kinds of fruit smoothies each morning and interesting salads and sides at lunch. It was good. I was enjoying myself. Now, I'm pouring a boring bowl of Total raisin bran for breakfast and getting burned out on hot dogs for lunch. I know it's time to spice things up, but it takes time. Time that, for one reason or another, I can't find.

I'm in a slump.

Not a weight-loss slump, though. As of last Thursday, I've lost 19 pounds. That's almost twenty whole pounds! I can feel it in my clothes. I'm switching out baggier jeans for better-fitting ones. Students have even asked if I'm losing weight. I am.

Maybe too much. Okay, let me rephrase that. I'm not in any kind of danger of being underweight, that's for sure. But last week, when I entered my loss into the website, it told me I was losing weight too quickly. That I needed to slow my loss. Something about health concerns, irregular heartbeats, yadda yadda.

I'm not going to lie. That was sort of discouraging. I mean, can't I do anything right? That's what I'm asking myself. I know, though, that the faster I lose, the faster it could come back. And heaven knows I don't want it to come back.

That week, Nancy asked us if we ate one meal a week where we didn't worry about points. Again, there were a lot of people nodding, but not me. That's when Sarah threatened to whack me in the head and then said something about deserving to enjoy myself every once in a while. Or something like that. But the truth is that I was enjoying myself. But I also knew that I was losing weight a little too quickly, so I thought I would try out the no-rules weekly meal.

I tried it, but I'm not sure if that helped. Me I still lost 1.4 last week, but I just didn't feel good about my progress. I was proud of the loss, but the week's behavior didn't feel very healthy.

I'm losing enthusiasm, and I'm worried. I know it's irrational, but I'm starting to doubt if I'll ever be at a healthy weight. I know that there will be a plateau soon, and I'm scared that I won't be able to push through it.

Today, the road seems longer than ever, and pulling off completely to go through the window at McDonald's has never been so tempting. Damn that singing fish.

A small victory: I tried on clothes in a dressing room without having a total meltdown. I even tried on a bathing suit top and was able to envision a time when I might be able to wear it. It was cute.