Lot's of good progress so far.

So Friday marked my 9th weekly weight in since I started trying to eat better.  I was shocked and amazed to see a 2.2 pound loss when I stepped on the scale.  Also, very happy.  🙂
So this brings my weight down to 257 and my total loss to 15.2 pounds.
I haven’t seen the 250’s in about a year so this makes me very very excited. 
The weight I was most comfortable at while still being “morbidly obese” was around 220.  I was fitting into a size 18 jeans and generally felt really good about my appearance.  Of course I was also running on a near daily basis at the time while training for a half marathon, but still…that was my weight.
At this stage in the game though, any loss is a welcome loss.  Or even, just not a gain.  You see, I’m still not really being super strict or counting calories yet.  I’m just cutting my portions down and making better decisions.  I’ve got a basic concept of what works for me during the week and I’m just trying to stick to it.  Chicken, brown rice and a veggie for dinner.  Overnight oats for breakfast and something well balanced for lunch.  Veggies and fruits for snacks and I’ve cut out most diet sodas. 
I’m beginning to see the loss in my face.  My double (triple) chin is getting a bit smaller and my cheekbones are becoming a little bit more pronounced.  I really wish I had taken some body shots when I started so I have a real documentation, alas that didn’t happen.  I did take some the other day so I will at least have something going forward.
What I am starting to notice are other little things that are changing for me cosmetically.  Things I had basically just stopped trying at.
I had pretty much given up on trying to look pretty.  My clothes were straight up tee shirts and jeans.  Why bother to try and dress nice when everything you wear looks like a sack of potatoes anyway right?
Well, lately I have been buying some new items online.  Nothing major, but before I was rotating the same three shirts and the same pair of jeans every day.  Now I have a little more variety and some of the things look a lot cuter on me than they would have fifteen pounds ago.
Also, my skin has been a wreck for most of my adult life.  I have rosacea, but I’ve never really even attempted to take care of my skin.  Turns out that I also have a skin condition I never knew existed.  Milia is the name of those white bumps I have scattered all over my cheeks, just under my eyes.  I had always assumed they were very stubborn white heads that could only be cured by lancing them and pushing out the small white ball inside it.  While you can do this method, they are not whiteheads, but are actually small cysts that are filled with keratin.  I had no idea!  And I just assumed that I was stuck with these suckers for life.  I have had them over a decade and other than lancing them, I have never gotten them to go away with any sort of acne cream – which makes total sense now.
Anyhoo, I gave up on my skin because it was in such a bad way.  I would slather on the foundation to cover the rosacea, but the texture of my skin was always off due to the milia.  I just learned to live with it.  About a month ago, I started using a pretty standard moisturizer.  It was just a hydrating gel that I got when we went to Korea to keep my skin from drying out on the plane.  I have been using it every single morning after my shower and nothing else.  I have found that the texture of my skin is getting better and it doesn’t look so dry and my pores aren’t as prominent. 
Yesterday while researching something else, I stumbled upon an article about Milia and found that you can treat it by using raw honey on them.  I started that yesterday and we shall see how it goes.
I finally gave myself a much needed haircut yesterday as well.  My hair was almost down to my butt and just a mess of straggly split ends.
My point is, that at some point in my weight gain, I gave up on everything else.  My clothes. My face. My hair.  Even my bra.  My stomach was so big that wearing an underwire hurt, so I started buying granny bras and wearing them.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it didn’t do wonders for my self esteem.
I’m now feeling like it’s worth trying to make myself feel that much better by liking other things when I look in the mirror, not just my waistline. 
I view this as a huge win.  While it is not a win on the scale, I think it is even better than that.