Weight Loss

A couple of months ago I leaned over to wrap my hair in a towel after a nice hot bath and noticed that my stomach was jiggling around like a bowl of jello in a plastic baggie. I stood up and wiggled my arms, then my thighs, and then noticed a few ripples and jiggles where there should never be a ripple or jiggle. I need to lose some weight or, at the very least, tone up a little. Since then I have been tracking my measurements every monday morning, watching what and how much I eat, spending 30 minutes at curves 6 times a week, and another 20 minutes on my stationary bike 6 days a week. I'm happy to say that I've started to see some progress, now I'm going to help hold myself accountable for my weight loss by posting it here. So as of today:

Weight: 163, this is up two pounds from Friday! Of course I had the flu last week so some of my weight loss might not have been anything I was purposely doing.
Height: 5'7
Arms: 11.5 inches
Chest: 36.5 inches
Waist: 31.25 inches
Stomach: 38.75
Hips: 41.25
Thigh: 21 inches

My goal is 135lbs which should put me in the dead center of my weight rage for my height, age and sex. More than that I would like to be a size 8 or maybe a size 6. I remember, vaguely, being a size 8 once and seemed to really enjoy it. The thigh of my pants didn't wear out, I could look at a pair of courderoy's without the horrible thought that eveyone would know where I was walking based on the sound of my pants rubbing together. I could wear a sleeveles shirt without fear of my arm flaps taking out passerby. If, by some chance, my shirt pulled to reveal my stomach I wasn't asked when I was due. Nope, size 8 is the goal. At the moment I am firmly in between a 10 and 12. The 12 is just a little too big while the 10 is still a little tight. I know that I can do this, I have confidence in myself.

I did notice something interesting about losing weight though. Some friends of ours said, "Oh you don't need to lose any weight, you look good!" I know it's a nice thing to say and I'm not that big, unless you've seen the jiggle you would agree, I'm fine. Unfortunately, obesity and all the problems that come with it run in my family. If I don't do the work now I'm going to dramatically reduce my life expectency through my weight. I'm trying to be proactive. Here's the part that I don't understand, we know that obesity is a problem and that is can cause a long list of health problems, we also know that smoking causing lots of health problems as well. We know that both habits are addictive and require a lifelong commitment to stop and get under control. We know that children can be harmed through either bad habit, even if their only exposure is knowing that a parent participates in an unhealthy lifestyle. What I don't understand is that it is perfectly acceptable to tell someone that they don't need to lose weight, but you wouldn't dream of telling someone to quit smoking. Likewise, it's acceptable to tell someone they should quit smoking but if you were to tell a friend that they should drop a few pounds you would be drawn and quartered. Don't misunderstand, smoking is bad and I need to quit for me, my family and the family that I hope to have but weight is an important issue as well, why don't we recognize that, why don't we get supportive about that? Why is ok to critize someone for making choices to prevent weight gain but's unthinkable to discourage someone from smoking? I just don't get it.