Inch off my waist? Really? But scale on sodium hold at 202 (damn you sauerkraut and kosher hot dog!)...BUT, MAJOR NEWS: I didn't rush to food for comfort on getting bad news, which means I changed, somehow, really changed (right?)......on day 88 of Phase 5

Tanita-san wavered between 201.8 and 202.0, so it's 202.0, as I go by highest number.

But my waist is down one inch since two days ago, when I was also 202.0. :) Body is weird, huh?

I am sore like mad. Really, crazy sore. Hubby kept hearing me groan last night. I exercised a lot in the last two days, and today I designate a "let the dang muscles rest day". I think it's the combo of exercising a lot and eating a salty supper (low fat hot dogs with NO buns, mustard, sauerkraut, and blackberries/cantaloupe fruit salad). I have great hopes for a good weigh-in Sunday as I stay the course.

I will say that something fundamental has shifted within me. Yesterday, I got bad news re a sibling. I was...a bit depressed. I woke up still a bit depressed. Then I wept a bit. Then she and I chatted on the phone, and then I wept a bit more.

My mom died of a bone marrow condition that essentially robbed her of blood. She had to get weekly blood transfusions and the chemo used to try and save her life ended up making her last months agonizingly, horrifically painful due to neurophathy. She ended up unable to walk, use her hands, unable to see, helpless, and in chronic pain. It was....torture.

So, I'm having these flashbacks to that dreadful year --the year I ballooned to 299, gaining more than 30 pounds in 8 months from stress eating, almost becoming diabetic in the process--and I'm feeling anxious and upset and sad, sad, sad.

I keep telling myself this is probably some other anemia, not aplastic anemia. Something correctible with B-12 and iron or better nutrition. I can't bear to think our autoimmune whack genes are at it again..with my big sis.

Anyway, I didn't realize until just 30 minutes ago that, as much as my string of weeks of energetic  joy dived into worry and sadness and bad flashbacks and weeping, I did not reach for food. I didn't reach for chocolate and pasta and mashed potatoes and mac n cheese or call for pizza or lasagna or enchiladas or anything.

I had a simple egg and fruit breakfast. I have not snacked. I'm completely fine foodwise, so far.

And the realization astounds me. I am not self-comforting with food. I hope, I hope, I hope, please God, I hope this is a permanent shift and I'm never gonna dive into food to make me feel okay again when things get dark. I really want this change to be fundamental to a New Me reality.

For now, I thank Heaven. I thank God that bad news didn't = bad eating.

It's...a transformation.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you......dear Lord, thank you!

If you're a praying person, could you please pray for healing for my sis. You can call her "I" (her first name's initial). She's 70, and I know that as we age, things hit us, but to spare her (and all of us) the awfulness of what my mom went through, this is my prayer and my wish and my desire and my hope.

Some good, some the same, and some bad--my post is like human life, eh?

Today, I pray good health and good news for you....