Two years ago, more or less, I weighed over 300 pounds, I lived in San Francisco, I was in a job I hated, a relationship that wasn't working any more, and I had just undergone weight-loss surgery. Two years ago, I started writing posts here on Elastic Waist. And over the course of that two years as they flew on by, I wrote about sex and shiny things, food and eating and the occasional celebrity, being naked and being crazy, and every strange turn my life has taken, both minor and magnificently insane.

Over and through 1,059 entries, I've lost almost 200 pounds, switched jobs, quit my job, ended my relationship, started a new relationship, moved to Utah, of all places. I've thought about plastic surgery, fallen down stairs, been both depressed and over the moon. I've exercised and not, quit smoking, started again, quit again. I never ran that 5K I kept talking about; I did finally come to terms with the fact that I am never going to become a Bikram yoga-ist but that I do love me some bike riding. Though someday I will ride it off a cliff and then I'll be sorry.

I figured out some things--that I am too hard on myself, that I am hopeful and sometimes that is a good thing, that I'm a little nuts, that I worry too much, that things will usually end up being okay when you work at it, that I am not the only person in the world who thinks the way I do and worries about the things I worry about and hopes for the things I hope for. That there are people out there who understand and get it, and that we were lucky, over this two-year run of Elastic Waist, to have those people--to have you guys out there, reading and responding and making this crazy Internet project exactly as wonderful as it turned out to be.

This was an amazing experience, this opportunity to blog just as honestly about my ass and the insecurities rising forthwith as I could handle. It was exhilarating and frustrating and exhausting and ridiculous and ridiculously fun. I had two years worth of being a professional blogger, and I know how lucky I was. I had two years of sharing some of the best readers a blog could get, and I know how lucky I am. Thank you for that, you guys.

Elastic Waist is going away, and it's not entirely a surprise--have you seen the economy out there? I'm not going away, though. Today is our last day here, but I'm going to keep up with this daily blogging thing.

I'll be writing (under my real live and true birth name even!) at jen larsen (dot net) (hi!). I'm part of a growing portal of so-good writers called Dearest Mabel. I'll be posting regularly over at Big Fat Deal. I'll keep twittering, and taking unfortunate pictures and spending entirely too much time on the Internet and not at the gym. And I hope I don't lose you guys, because you're what's made it all worth it, and entirely awesome.

Happy new year, everyone. It's going to be grand.

"Success isn't permanent, and failure isn't fatal." Mike Ditka, you're a wise man. Elastic Waist was one of those successes, where it seemed that someone somewhere got it right, we could have a place online where people weren't bombarded with images of what they should be and why they weren't good enough. Instead, they could share their struggles while still loving the lives and bodies they have. Unfortunately, it wasn't permanent--a casualty of the craptastic economy. But, it's not fatal either. The great thing about this little experiment of ours is that you, all of you, were a part of it. You all are so smart and witty and sensible and remind me everyday that there are real people out there with confidence and humor and sensibilities and you give me this resounding hope that we're all pretty awesome, no matter what the media tries to make us think.

I would love to put all of you in my pocket and keep you forever because as crazy as this might seem, in my time here I really feel like I've gotten to know you. I am so grateful for the opportunities that EW has provided me. Trust me, as an actor you don't see many casting calls for women size 10 and over to star in anything. When I saw the ad for what would eventually become The Daily Special I thought, "That's me!" And it was, and I can't thank the crew of TDS and Pretty Imperfect enough for being just about the most awesome people ever. Oh, and the editorial staff of Elastic Waist, man they are the unsung heroes, they deserve a big, big round of applause for all of their hard work and dedication. When they asked me to write for Elastic Waist I tried to play it cool, but I basically just jumped up and down silently screaming and waving my hands in the air, because could this whole thing get any better?!  And it did, because in writing for Elastic Waist I got to be a realer version of myself, the self that is coming to terms with my own reality, and dealing with my own struggles, and having my own adventures and gosh darnit I said I wouldn't cry.

We may be parting ways in this venue, but I will be transitioning my writing about life and weight and inner most neurosis to my blog The Kim Challenge, starting tomorrow with my monthly resolutions. I'm also really excited about a new blog I've started, and have invited some of the best most wonderful and witty foodies I know to contribute on called Forkful of News. I love food, I love eating and I love reading and obsessing over food, and that's what Forkful of News is about--loving food. I hope that you'll find me at my two blogs, but if you just want to drop me a line, please do, I mean we're old friends by now right? I would love to know what you're up to as I am totally utterly in love with you and am holding a boom box over my head right now.

There's been an elephant that's been standing in this cyber room since mid-December. Some of you knew about it from other sources and that is the very sad fact that today is the final day of Elastic Waist. I've been dreading this day, mostly because I didn't know what I was going to say. I mean, there's the obvious stuff: we're not dying and will still be around the Internet: I'll be contributing over on Dearest Mabel, Big Fat Deal, and Forkful of News, as well as my own personal projects, That's My Bix and Product Anarchy and will still be hosting the annual Green Bay Minicon in March (which everyone is more than welcome to attend). But it's not enough to look forward without taking a pause to look back at all that's happened within the auspices of Elastic Waist.

When Elastic Waist started back in early 2007, I was the supposed voice of Elastic Waist's main page. Most of my posts went unsigned. I hid behind this orange and pink marquee, spouting fluffy and sometimes snotty remarks about celebrities and news items. I never thought myself an authority on anything. I was just a voice in the crowd. Then eventually I started to open up, started telling more and more personal anecdotes. I never wanted to be the poster girl for childhood trauma, and yet, without even wanting to, the more painful stories of my past started leaking out, too. Considering that I've been blogging since 1999, it doesn't seem like I'd have any major anecdotes left untold but I've written about things on Elastic Waist that I've never told anyone. Not online. Not in person. No one. And you've written back and told me that it was okay. And some of you told me that you had been there too.

You've also told me that the site made you feel better about yourself, feel stronger, feel motivated, feel lucky to be alive. You've also written to tell me when I'm being an asshole too, which, believe it or not, I cherish just as much as the happy mail, because you give such thoughtful and well-written rebuttals that I am honored that you're even bothering to engage me in a discussion. I'm amazed by your respect and that you care enough to attempt to change my mind. That's the best thing about writing for this community: we're all the same but we're all so amazingly different, so vibrantly diverse and beautiful that I'm welling up just thinking about it. It was more than a privilege to write for you every day, Elastic Waisters, it was an honor.

I have loved being a part of your life. Thank you for being a part of mine.

All my love in the new year,
Weetabix

Every year I make resolutions, because I like the idea of a fresh start, a definitive place to start, a moment you can point to and say yes, there. That is the starting line, and here is where we'll begin. Every year about this time, I look back at the resolutions I had made (because I have a memory like a drunken sieve) and I think oh, those were good ideas! Too bad I didn't actually, you know, work on any of that stuff. Too bad this year was exactly like last year which was exactly like the year before, in terms of Self-Improvement.

In terms of everything else, this year, and last year, and the year before have been amazing rollery coaster kinds of adventures, during which, if we have to be honest and fair, I haven't had much time to think about esoteric improvement schemes. Mostly I've been trying to catch my breath and stay more or less upright and moving forward, wide-eyed, wide-awake, hoping not to fail. I keep saying that I think things were going really well for me until everything went to hell, and it kind of feels that way. The first ten months were nothing short of--well, really hard, for awhile there. Adjustments after my move, adjustments in my relationship, feeling isolated, worrying that I had made the wrong decision, that I wasn't cut out for any of this, or maybe anything at all.

I realized this holiday that apparently my secret shameful food snobbery was out when friends and relatives gave me some Himalayan pink salt, Nepali Birae Noon (black salt from India) and a jar containing two especially evil looking truffles, imported from France. Sure, I am a culinary tourist and plan my vacations around dinner reservations but I didn't think it was, well, so freaking obvious. Sigh.

The thing I don't understand is that sure, crazy salt addiction aside, half of the stuff that is considered gourmand isn't even that big of a deal. For instance, chevre is much lower in fat than cream cheese, has actual protein and tastes a million times better, so why on earth would you ever bother with the Philly? And I always get eyebrow raises when I make my favorite appetizer ever, bacon-wrapped dates, but seriously, the recipe is practically the name of the dish! You take bacon and wrap it around a date, and then throw it into the oven until the bacon is done. The end. It's much less work than anything Sandra Lee ever placed on a tablescape. Maybe I'm not so much an epicurean as a really lazy person who just likes interesting flavors.

Right now, this lazy gourmand is stuck on citrus in all forms. This weekend, I plan to candy some clementine peels and make some bright jars of lemon curd (or maybe key lime curd if I can't find meyer lemons yet). It's easy peasy and both will keep away the SAD through the dark weeks of January. And if someone calls you a food snob, you can remind them that it's just so darned easy to eat fancy that life is too short to eat things out of a box.

Image via Chotda's Flickr Page

He reaches up, his fingers curling around my hips as we move, along my waist, up my sides. His fingers close over my breasts, and in the middle of everything, after he has maybe told me that I am beautiful, after he has demonstrated with his hands and his mouth and his lips that everything about my body may very well be everything he has ever wanted in a woman, after he has shown me that all he has wanted these long moments in bed is my body, that all my skin and flesh does is bring him happiness, and satisfaction, in the middle of all this, I want to apologize. I want to say I'm sorry about my breasts. I don't think they're good enough--large enough, really--and how can you think they're good enough?

Sometimes I can shake it off, usually by shaking off his hands in some ingenious way. Leaning down, leaning back, switching positions, distracting him with the parts of my body that might be acceptable. Sometimes, everything stutters to a halt. Everything comes crashing down into this one fatal flaw of mine, this one particular blemish--that having small breasts should be considered a blemish is, in my rational moments, an astonishing thing. They fit my frame, my body size. They suit me. They are perky, adorable. They are perfectly reasonable. They are, in a dark place in my head, not only not good enough for me, they're not good enough for my boyfriend no matter what he says or how he demonstrates his actual admiration, and I want to say I'm sorry.

I kind of hate this time of year. Not the winddown of the holiday madness... that's actually kind of a relief. No, it's the weirdness about New Year's Eve. I really hate the idea of New Year's Resolutions. In my opinion, if there's something about yourself that you want to change, you freaking change it. Dates are arbitrary! Every moment of every day is the beginning of a new year, you have exactly 365 days until this very same date happens around again: it just doesn't have a tidy little date stamp to make it look official. And most New Year's Resolutions are cloaked in self-improvement, but are almost always about what you dislike most about yourself. Things you want to change. For instance, 48 hours from now, the entire world will become extremely concerned with how fat it is. It's a hard time to be a person with disordered eating in their past and doubly hard to be a crusader for body acceptance. Everyone is pointing at their bits and bumps and saying how wrong, wrong, wrong it is. Wrong! As though anything that is decided by the flittering beauty ideal of the moment could be right! One image, folks: Venus of Willendorf. As that clock strikes twelve, just remember that on some New Year's Eve in the not too distant past, a girl very much like you was wishing for a few more dimples on her thighs, pretty please.

Let's do a little experiment this year.

Here is the truth: if your feet are not warm, you will not feel warm anywhere in your body. I don't know if that is science or psychology (which, technically is a science, I suppose, but you know what I mean), but it is as good as a true fact. Not good enough: cotton socks, socks you pick up in a pack of 6 for 6 dollars at Target, cute socks with ducks on. I mean, they cover your feet, but will they keep them warm? Truly, magnificently warm the way they were meant to be kept? Maybe, if you live in a tropical clime. If you are instead tromping through snow and ice and winter and bitching about being SO COLD HOLY CRAP HELP (me), you will find ordinary socks woefully inadequate--especially after you try Lorpen socks. They call themselves "innovative" and "technical." I call them the warmest things I've ever put on my body, and the price is worth the product. You will have to pry them off my cold, dead feet before I give them up. Or just wait until the summer, when I will be complaining about being too hot.

I'm the winner, woohoo! You may now call me the grand puma of ingestion because ladies and gents, I done ate more than you, I ate more than anyone, and I have the muffin top to prove it.  I'd like a crown, but no flowers please, I don't want to go overboard.

I don't feel guilty about being on a week-long binge per se, since it's somewhat expected at this time of year, but I'm certainly not feeling so hot physically.  I think I forgot how to be hungry. Really.  I was considering a fast, but fasts just seem mean to me.  Instead, I will do what I love doing most.  I will grocery shop.

Image via The Pioneer Woman

Did you cook a giant, incredible meal full of magnificence for the holiday? More than one? Did you eat more than one? Are you about to sit down to another one, come New Year's Eve, and then on New Year's Day feast on the greatest brunch spread the world has ever seen? It's a good time of year for the eating, and I heartily approve of it. But sometimes you need to take a break from the heavy, the creamy, the rich and complicated spreads full of cheese and roasted meats. You need to take a break from cooking the rich and complicated spreads, too. The Pioneer Woman gets my Oh yeah! I forgot about that! award with her post on the Monday Night Stir Fry--the antidote to what feels like decades of holiday foods. Easy, fast, far lighter, and in no way seasonally significant--it's the dinner break you didn't know you'd been waiting for.