Oh dear, a bikini is not in my future

So, I had ordered a bikini in a style that I thought would flatter my figure as best as possible. Well, it's not so flattering. Basically, my tummy is tired - old - worn out and there is nothing I can do to pretty it up short of massive surgery.

My tummy has always been my trouble area, so I'm not surprised. Once upon a time I had hoped that with adding fitness I could make my tummy look like this: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8NrVi2Z3kn-tj5ULl6v_dwQB59AAkvXK7DzFhyGeUCE-QjDjYEiMyAzLqfOLjoNalTS-tEhLH8iL1LdBdbIK1dDSiyijF3EE2_c-mqA_1l0nxorrZZGLz9jHUwuQAN9qSsAi42okmknM/s1600/crystal-renn-in-a-bikini.jpg but that would have only been possible before kids and before being 42 years old.

I know it was a major disappointment for me when I lost weight the last time. I just saw the same shape me, just thinner. I had the same weak spots - the same paunchy stomach. The same big arms, the same wobbly inner thighs. Just smaller overall.

I sit right now the thinnest I have been my entire adult life and I'm working on 14 more pounds. I am not going to magically find some perfect body there waiting for me and all my efforts. Now I can accept that. It's OK. I've earned these stripes.  Someone posted this picture yesterday and I loved it as it's so true:

And if my stomach looked that good even with stretch marks? I would so wear a bikini. But I don't look like that and I won't look like that in 15 pounds. And that is OK. I will still look better in a swimsuit than I have for more than 20 years. I'll just need to find other ways to show off my progress which I'm very proud of.

On the weight loss forum I did share photos of myself trying on bikinis. Why? Because if we cannot accept our bodies as they are, then how can we tell anyone else to accept theirs? I'm not sharing it here as it's more public, but I'm not ashamed of my body. I did to my body what I did. I gained the weight. I had the babies. But I also shrunk it back up and I'm getting more and more fit and so I'm proud.

Stats for 4/12/12:

Highest weight: 275  Now: 168.8
Total hours worked out in 2012: 72.25/250