Last week I lost my 10-year-old. Twice.

It was an eventful week. What can I say?

The first time was on Tuesday. Jake accidentally took the bus home instead of coming out to the parking lot to meet me. He has this story about his friends pulling him onto the bus by his backpack. (Really, Jake? This is what we're going to go with?) He was struggling and everything. (I strained my eyes rolling them during this portion of the story.) He just.couldn't.get.away. (Ha ha hahaha!)

The second time was Thursday. That was the day I officially hit 72 pounds lost. Yep. Since July, I have lost the weight of a fourth grader. Crazy, right?

I had intended to 'go public' with my weight loss when I made the 50 lb mark. When I got there, however, I chickened out. When you've been significantly overweight for a long time, people get used to you always being on some kind of diet. Whether it's a program like Weight Watchers, a 'plan' like South Beach, or simply counting calories...many of the people in your life tend to become immune to your attempts. And, as frustrating as that is, I can understand it. I can't tell you how many times I lost 20 lbs on some plan only to gain it back (with interest, of course!) when I got burnt out or bored. So I kept putting it off until I felt like the weight loss was real.

I have accomplished most of the weight loss using a meal replacement plan but I think I would have been successful with any approach this time. From April until July I spent my time in a place called "rock bottom". I was not in a good place and it was just not getting any better. (I even sent in an application to be on a weight loss show. I made it two rounds in, which was kind of neat! Then I got cut and that wasn't quite as neat. I wasn't truly a sad panda, however, until I found out that Ty Pennington is one of the people who works on the show. I love me some Ty.) Anyway--I think I have just had that switch flipped. I am absolutely ready to lose this weight and willing to do whatever it is that needs to be done to get rid of it.

If you've been around awhile, you might have noticed that I don't make many appearances in the picture portion of my blog. I think I'm ready to nudge my way out into the open. It's been about a year since I posted anything weight-loss related here and there's a reason for that--I started gaining weight. And a lot of it. Here's the picture I've been using as my "before" picture. I had actually lost about eight pounds when this picture was taken but it's the closest thing I have that works. (When compared to the picture of me in the sidebar, the weight gain is pretty obvious.)

And here is my current picture. Jason snapped this for me this morning before he left for work. (Forgive the photo quality. It's the same camera as above but indoor photos don't come out quite as well.) I am at my lowest weight in about eight years.

I still have a long way to go, but I am very happy with my progress. I am currently struggling a little, but I have faith that I'm going to push through it. I'll probably be sharing a little more about that next week.