Reality Check

Friday, August 14, 2009

The downward trend on the scale has stopped dead in its tracks for the last couple of days, in part because I'm essentially allergic to being a girl and my body decides to retain water like a camel in the Sahara at both ends of my menstrual cycle, huzzah. In part, however, it's because I'm putting on muscle at the same time I'm losing fat, and muscle weighs more than fat. Intellectually I understand this, and that lack of movement on the scale isn't necessarily bad. Emotionally, though, I'm jumping up and down while calling the scale a lying motherfucker because I really want those numbers to continue dropping, dammit.

Humph. At least I can SEE that I'm putting on muscle. My clothes are fitting better, my calves are turning into lovely, well-defined things once again, my quads are getting stronger every day (seriously, you cannot imagine how happy I was when I got my butt to my heels for the first time a couple of days ago -- I couldn't have done that if you put a gun to my head two months ago), and I've moved up five pounds on a variety of exercises. I still don't see a lot of definition in my upper body, but let's be honest, I'm also carrying a hella amount of padding there. I do see the faintest of changes in my upper arms, shoulders and back, though, which is something, and my face doesn't look as bloated as it did back in June. The tummy -- yeah, well, that's usually the last to go, so I'll just live with it for now.

And I have to admit something -- my butt looks downright weird. I still have junk in the trunk, but I also have muscle back there now and it's pushing everything out and up. I'm guessing that's a self-correcting problem as I continue to work out, but I really do feel like I have a living bustle attached back there.