Things are looking up

Or down.  Actually, a month in Italy will help almost any problem!

I am pleased to say that I have lost a little weight, and that certainly improves how I look.  Okay, so I thought that bulge on my side was permanent, but it turns out that it wasn't.  Today I weight 138.5/142 and on September 1, I probably weighed 142/146 (the first number is what I weigh first thing in the morning and the second is what I likely actually weigh!) and those 3.5 pounds make a difference.  How did this happen?  In Italy?  I ate less.  Crap, what a simple solution--just eat less.  I'm not sure I technically "ate less", but I think I ate better.  It helps that the food tastes so great that you can actually be satisfied by having a small portion; it also helps that there were more options at a meal rather than my kind of "one dish" menus.  That side of salad or veggies can go a long way to filling you up!  I also never (well, almost never) took seconds.  At home I don't either, but I take extra on the first because I know I'm not getting more, so the secret is to not take that extra.  It isn't fun, but it is possible.  I did eat a fair number of desserts in Italy.  Hmmmmmmm.  Maybe I should get a dessert or two during each week to give me something to look forward to.  

I had decided before I left that I would quite eating three large (very large) olives with my martini on Friday.  I thought I would do zero olives, but that seems cruel--I'm doing one.  Again, I drank a lot of wine in Italy, so it isn't like I gave up those empty alcohol calories!  I'm looking for calories I can give up without too much pain.

I'm also weeding my wardrobe.  A month with the same clothes certainly tells you that you can do with less, especially if the less looks good on you.  Okay, I didn't think everything looked good on me, but I made mental notes about what did, and what didn't, and that's what the next couple of months are going to be about--finding what looks good and getting rid of all the excess that doesn't.

Obviously I have a tight relationship with my clothes, and looking good in my clothes.  I'm willing to give up looking hot if I can look good.  Oh, and my pants had suddenly gotten too short, but that also seems to be reversed by having a little more room in them higher up!

I have done nothing about the bike-in-trainer.  I still intend to (although it is rainy), but I'm enjoying a sinus infection so that doesn't make much sense right now.  

And I'm going to be positive.  This can be fixed!  Not the fix I might have thought of a few weeks ago, but it is possible to get fitter and lose the extra weight (I'm just talking the extra, not more than needed).  And that's a lot!  

We'll talk about those arms some other time.