One Pound Under 200
14 stone 3 pounds doesn't look like much of a win written down like that. Write it as 199 lbs instead, and it's a number I've never been under before.
14 st 3 lb. Written like that, it barely looks like progress. One pound down from last time, the kind of change that could just be what I had for breakfast.
Write the same number differently, though. 199 lbs. That’s not “one pound down.” That’s the first time in this whole thing I’ve been under 200.
Nothing actually changed between those two numbers. They’re the exact same weight. Stone and pounds hid the milestone from me. Pounds on their own handed it straight over. A number starting with a 1 instead of a 2 feels like crossing something, even though the scales didn’t do anything dramatic to get me there.
I know this isn’t the finish line. I know next week’s number isn’t guaranteed to start with a 1 either. I’m not going to skip celebrating it just because it’s small, or because tomorrow might put me back on the other side of it.
Small wins, slow pace. If I only celebrated the big ones, I’d be waiting a very long time between celebrations, and that’s not a deal I’m willing to make with myself.
199 it is. For today, anyway.