It's really important to focus on mote than the scale. 5 or so years ago my office started these really competitive biggest loser contests. You'd put in $20 and have to weigh in every week. Any week you gained any weight you had to put in another dollar. The person with the highest percentage of weight loss took the pot. The days before the weigh in I would crash diet and dehydrate myself just to maintain the 7 pound weight loss from the first week. But I found my rhythm and eventually lost 50 pounds on my own going to the gym 4 nights a week. After a year or so I slowly stopped going. The scale never budged so I never panicked even though I knew what was happening was that my muscle loss and fat gain were balancing each other out.
I started a new job last March. I went from running around stressed to the max working side by side with dietitians swapping healthy recipes and having healthy luncheons to sitting at a desk all day where people bring in baked goods at least once a month to celebrate birthdays and celebrated junk food day this year. Let's just say I gained the freshman 15 and was less than 5 pounds away from being back at my highest weight.
So these pants button but do not fit. I think I have another 5-10 pounds to go before these will feel comfortable. They are a size smaller and the same brand as another pair of pants I wear to work now. I could barely button these 2 weeks ago. Maybe in a week or 2 I can wear these? We'll see haha