So, the awful thing happened. I was just minding my own business, getting dressed to go out to an early dinner with DBF, when I squatted down to get socks from my drawer. My only pair of skinny jeans ripped up the seam in the back. Needless to say, I was pissed and also it just made me feel horrible. The first thing I thought was "I'm so freaking fat! Fat, fat, fatty!" I just wanted to cry.
But DBF was taking me out to dinner and I didn't want to ruin one of the rare days that we get to spend doing something besides going to the gym or sleeping before he leaves for work. Plus, it always puts him in a terrible mood when I get down on myself like that. I definitely didn't want to put him in a bad mood and drag him down with me. I did manage to let it go for the afternoon.
Granted, I can kind of blame it on the pants themselves. You know that really thin, stretchy "jean" material. It kind of feels like jeans but it stretches until you wash it and it immediately shrinks like 4 sizes so you have to re-stretch it out again every time. Yeah, they were made out of that crap and they were clean. So, I did what I usually do and did that really unlady-like squat that you do to get your jeans to fit like they're supposed to. They just ripped.
Next time I buy skinny jeans I'm going to do my best to find them in real denim. I don't even know if they make those anymore, though. I just want my jeans to be made out of denim like in the good ole days. Is that too much to ask?
I was just scanning through blogs, like I do most nights at work, and I came across a post from one of the blogs I read on a semi-regular basis. It was about weight. Not putting so much emphasis on the number and more on finding a good fitness level and a place where you feel good. The post just got me thinking. I love the idea. It's wonderful in theory. In practice, for me, not so much.
DBF is always on me about weighing myself. I do it almost every time I visit my parents. There's a scale in the bathroom my sister and I shared and I have a very hard time resisting the temptation of finding out if I've actually lost anything since I weighed last time. The past few times I have managed to resist but before that I just never shared that I'd weighed again. DBF loves me and thinks I'm beautiful no matter how much I weigh and he loved me even before I started losing all the fat.
I've managed to lean up a lot in the past 8 or so months that we've been going to the gym. It's been mostly in the past few months though. I was just so out of shape that I basically had no muscles at all and I had to build those up under my fat before I could even begin to lose that stuff. I managed to do it. I just wish it had been faster. Actually, what I really wish is that I hadn't let myself get so out of shape in the first place.
I was a runner in high school. I ran cross country and the middle distances in track. I can't say that I was particularly fast but I was in good shape. And, then I ended up having tendon issues in my left knee that hurt so badly that I couldn't run and I basically got kicked off the team (thanks to my bitchy coach, who only liked you if you were fast anyway). After that my fitness just gradually declined and I took for granted that I could eat anything I wanted at that age and not gain a pound.
I gradually started gaining weight in my very early 20's. At 23 I got pregnant and lost the baby at about 8 weeks. But that 8 weeks of pregnancy really screwed with my hormones and then getting on the pill really did me in. It's just been so hard to get the weight off. I think it's partially to do with the pill and partially due to genetics.
Both of my parents and my extended family all suffer from weight issues of various degrees. Part of it is probably to do with everyone's fitness level. Just a generally unhealthy lot to begin with. But add onto that, that it just seems to run in both sides of our family to be overweight.
I grew up hearing all kinds of talk from the women in my family about diets of one sort or another, how they needed to lose weight, how they'd gained this or that much and how awful it was to be fat. My mother was particularly bad. She used to weigh about 107 to 110 when she met my dad and stayed that way until they decided to have kids. My mother gained weight with me that she never managed to lose, then she had my sister and never managed to lose that weight either. After that I suspect that she felt bad and ate her emotions and made the situation worse. Not to mention the fact that my father can be and ass about weight despite the fact that he's just as overweight as she is.
It just got drilled into my head as a kid to not let myself get fat. My mother was always weighing herself and obsessing about it. So, naturally I picked up on that and I can't seem to quite make myself not care about the number on the scale.
I want to not care. I want to just care about my fitness and my health and feeling good. I don't want to have to resist the temptation of weighing in every time I go into that bathroom. I want to just get down to a comfortable size and be able to wear my old favorite jeans again.
I'm really trying to care a little less. Some days I'm getting pretty good at it. Some days, like today, no matter how hard I try, I still feel like a fat, fat, fatty.
The blogger who wrote that post sort of challenged her readers to give up every woman's well guarded secret, her weight. The real number. So, here it is:
My name is Jessica and I weigh 178 pounds.
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