I had a realization recently. I have never, ever lost weight in the winter. Until this year, of course.

I weighed myself yesterday morning. I’m down 10 pounds since the middle of February, but I’ve gained a lot of muscle too, so I’m now told I look “markedly fitter” since my friend WB last saw me mid-February. I showed him my driver’s license, taken on my birthday, September 29th last year, in which my face was way, way fatter.

He did a mini-jawdrop and smiled. “That’s quite some difference over a winter!”

I felt awesome. Still do.

The numbers:

The “goal jacket” I bought before Christmas, 3 inches tight on me, pretty much fits me now but could be looser. 🙂 I’ve lost 24 pounds since mid-October. I’d lost 18 a couple weeks before Christmas, but thanks to receiving 3 HUGE food baskets as gifts for Christmas…

Okay, who gives food baskets to fat people for Christmas? How is this a good gift? Would you give a heroin junkie a bag of smack and tell him “Hey! It’s only once a year”? What the fuck? Not one basket, but THREE.

Caramel popcorn! (Don’t get me started. Hull-less, kernel-less caramel popcorn? [shudder] A local product you’d kill for, man.) Nachos! Nuts, nuts, and, yes, nuts! (And nuts, nuts, and…) Cheese, salami, and everything else you can think of. One of the baskets was easily $150. Beautiful.

…I gained eight pounds in about 3 weeks. But it was so good, and I knew it’d hurt.

So I’ve lost 14 pounds in 6 weeks. Not bad. And, lately, I’ve had too much pizza and even a few McGriddles, thanks to all the painting, and beer almost nightly, but I’ve still lost 3 pounds. Heh. ‘Cos while I’m painting my apartment, I make it as strenous as I can, squatting to paint trim, not sitting on the floor. Reaching as far as I can, things like that. Toning up something fierce. Also, I’m always conscious of the calories, which is huge in this. When I’m “blowing out” a day, I’ll even still try to keep it to 2,600 or so calories, nothing too insane, and I have to either have worked out or been doing physical work, so I think it’s self-negating. Not healthy, but self-negating.

And the spring’s coming up. I lost 35 pounds over the summer a few years back, and all my weight loss was from exercising. (Meaning I never, ever counted calories back then and really had no idea how to do it. Now I’m much more informed. MUCH.)

I only ever gained 10 of that back, which is pretty good. But I’ll lose much more this year. My goal, 40 more pounds by my birthday. Here’s willing. Never mind hoping.

I’m now 5 pounds from my weight in college (15 years ago now that I started college), which’ll be a wickedly good landmark to hit, hopefully the next two weeks, and I got another weekend of painting. Plus, it’s Spring now, and I can begin adding cycling to my highrise-stairclimbing routing (which is what’s responsible for this fabulous ass I’m beginning to get. Bubbly!) so I can’twait to see what my fitness is like in six months!

In short, I’m having a nice moment. 🙂