If you’re a long time blogfriend, it may sound familiar to hear that I am yet again on the losing weight train.

I bring you: The Incredible Shrinking Woman, 2.0.

Alternatively, The Incredible Shrinking Woman: When the First Five-To-Ten Failures Isn’t Enough.

I’m feeling like this time is different though.

For one thing, I’ve lost 22 pounds since I started on April 28 (making this my ninth week in this new effort). This is without a doubt the best success I’ve ever experienced in all the five-to-ten times I’ve tried to get healthier and, well, lose weight.

I am not sure what makes this time different, except I am focusing most on what I’m eating and not killing myself trying to exercise myself to literal death. I’m using a couple different apps, MyFitnessPal and the Noom program.

Really though, I feel like the biggest difference this time is my mindset.

This is such a body-conscious world. Whether it is “fat shaming”, or advertisers using models that are “too skinny” or “not representative of real-world women” or companies that use the public’s outrage against the beauty industry to sell more products, or the women that rail against those advertisers, wielding aggressive body-positivity against all the shamers and the haters, and maybe sometimes against the little voices inside themselves.

Sometimes when I see women talking about how they love their curves, they seem to be completely comfortable in their skin, and…I feel bad. I feel like I should be fat and love it.

But I don’t.

I’ve never been able to look at myself in the mirror, and see past the fat rolls and double chin and pudgy cheeks and think, “YES! I AM A BEAUTIFUL AND SEXY BITCH AND GODDAMMIT FAT IS THE NEW SKINNY!”

I wish that was the case, I wish it. But it’s not.

So most of the time I would look at myself, and really hate what I was seeing, and then see women who are even bigger than me, being (seeming) totally comfortable in their skin, carrying their extra weight like it’s nothing, like it’s a badge of honor or a big snuggly sexy blanket, and then I’d feel even worse because WHY CAN’T I JUST LOVE MYSELF AS I AM.

(PS: This article has a really interesting perspective on this.)

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do love myself. Or at least, most parts of myself. I’m smart, and funny, and kind, and I care about people, and I love learning things and I have hobbies, and varied interests, and I love making people smile and feel good.

But I don’t always love what I see when I look in the mirror. And I’d like to.

So one day I wake up, and I think to myself that I literally have two choices:

1. I can continue feeling like shit, forever and ever for the rest of my life, or;
2. I can try (again) to actually do something about it. And basically keep trying until I get it right.

At the risk of sounding overly-optimistic or sunshine-and-rainbows, I feel like this, for me, is truly one of those things where I had to really really want it and decide that like anything worth having, I would need to work at it. Like, work really hard.

I have goals, both short term and those that I don’t expect to achieve until this time next year. I practice meditation, and visualization, and journaling, so that I can hopefully improve not just how I feel but how I think and react to stress.

I don’t believe there are quick and easy fixes for losing weight. I don’t believe in”fat pills” that make you lose weight while you still sit on your ass and stuff your face full of junk food. I don’t believe in ads that claim you can lose 50 pounds in a month. I don’t believe that I will look the way I want to unless I put in the time, and effort, and make some sacrifices.

And I don’t want to feel bad about looking at myself and not being happy, or about wanting to change something about myself so that I can feel happier and healthier. I don’t want to feel like I’m selling out on the fat community, or to hear how I should stop trying to lose weight and instead trying to LOVE MY CURVES, because I tried that for a really long time and it didn’t work.

So, I’m trying something else. And so far, I’m motivated, and excited, and I’m seeing progress. I have goals and I’m achieving them.

That, more than anything else, feels good, and so, so exciting.

While I’m not super excited about my “before” picture, mostly because I look like someone who stayed out late binge drinking and eating every gooey chocolate drenched brownie I could find (not to mention bags and bags of cheesy-poofs), I just couldn’t resist putting in a before and progress photo. Because why get excited about successes (even small ones) if you don’t share them?