Posting some recent pics! plus my shrinking boobies, one semi-racy...don't worry, I'm...

Hey Lady
YOu look positively stunning in these pix. I do hope you will work on your body image feelings as you look wonderful and should be having the time of your life with your new svelt self and shouldn't waste a minute fretting about this stuff. A lesson i finally learned but wish i had learned a lot sooner. And I am really glad you bought that shirt - its da bomb!   Diane

You are right. I know it's just wasted energy. There is only so much that I can control and I need to just get over it!

Okay, you really need to STOP listening to the voices in your head because they are LYING to you!!  lol  You look absolutely freakin' gorgeous and by no stretch of the imagination are you fat! 

I love the racy one....so hot!!!   Happy late 40th birthday too!!

Hi Mandy!  You look great girl, but I know exactly what you're sayin about wanting to lose more.  But if you do lose more, then realize that your skin will only get worse.  And it's not even that bad girl.  I just don't see it.  You saw my befores and you look nothing like that.  And you just can't lose 10 lbs off your thighs...you know that.  So the rest of you may get too thin..including losing even more boobs!  You're frame looks bigger than mine though, because my bra size is 32D.  My ribs under my boobs is 29".  My Doc said there was no fat under the skin and that I was NOT a candidate for liposuction.  Of course he didn't know that until he actually got in there and saw with his own eyes.  The skin is very deceiving and even a seasoned PS thought I had more body fat than I did.  You look beautiful though.  Head games...I know honey. 

Laura

Hi Laura!  That is exactly why I intend to maintain at the weight I am at.  I definitely have atleast 10-15 pounds I could lose...I still have a bit of a fat roll on my back and I have love handles but I am happy with my skin and boobs so I would rather carry a bit of extra weight.  I don't have funds for plastics nor do I really want them so this is a good trade off for me.  Losing the weight only to need a tummy tuck and new boobies but not being able to get them would make me miserable.

Smart thinking girl.  If you don't intend to have plastics then stop because the last 10 or 15 is when the worst wrinkling of my skin happened and I lost it slooow to see if that would help and it didn't. 

Laura - you know, I have actually been wondering if I should just start eating at maintenance now and continuing to lift heavy - thinking I might do more of a recomposition type of thing. I still lose roughly a pound a week - some weeks nothing, some weeks 2 lbs...but it averages to 5 lbs a month or so. It's not really my size that bothers me, it's the fat that I still have. I definitely don't want my skin to get worse! I feel like I still have some back fat that could go..and thighs and butt. But you are right, too bad I can't choose where to lose it and my butt is sooooooooooooo saggy as it is.

So pretty!

You look terrific Mandy!  I am very similar in weight and height 5'7.5" and between 151-154 and you look much thinner than I do (I'm sure the exercise is making a difference ) and am also almost 10 years older.  I could stand to lose another 10 lbs but I  want it off my waist and tummy only.  Boobs are hanging in at 34F, but I hate my muffin top. 

I could tell you how lovely you are, but its just another murmur from the crowd, and I am not sure that any of our words drown out the words that you let echo in your noggin.

So, here is a blessing I put on you, and hope all the hope I have that you can hear it, and even if you do not believe it at first, all the time, that you will grow to.

You have worked hard. Your worth is beyond measure. You kind heart, generous soul, and giving spirit have far more to offer to a world and to your children than the size and shape of your breasts, however floppity your bottom is or isnt.  Your hard work and dedication to your outside shows your ability to buckle down and nitty gritty, but it does not change that it still concerns you what some Joe Schmoe thinks you look like under your clothes.  Your worth is more than some random stranger and their possible fantasies can measure.  Your depth of your value is far more than some pounds, or some wrinkles, or an x size pant.  The weight of what you have to offer, to your self, to your children, to your husband, to your community is much larger than the weight you have lost. 

I put my hand on your head and whisper in your ear to please work on the words, put in the time so that as lovely as your growing muscles are, that the beauty of the who you are and the what you have to offer is what you see without a chorus of yeabuts.  Whispers of urgings to put the same work into when you look at you the words you say to yourself about your body are more about the amazing things your body has done for you, carried your children, lived you this long, kept all of its parts, so that you can see the beauty of the work you have done, so that you can know that its true, so that you can show your daughter and she can mirror what she has learned from you.

That she is kind, wise, generous, and valuable. That her beauty has so much more to do with who she is, what she can do if she wants, what is innate in her that she can share with the word, and so much less to do with what anyone thinks of her under her clothes.

That you work on your words, so they reflect that you ARE an excellent friend to yourself.  That your legacy is not only of outside physical health, but one of excellent mental health, because you deserve it.  You really do. 

You REALLY do.