Coming up Short
I am disappointed to report that I will need to grow shorter in order to buy clothes that fit me.
I weighed in this morning at 170.50 pounds, down 80.25 pounds overall and almost 4.0 pounds since last Saturday. I am doing exactly what I did last week when I lost only 1.0 pound, as well as the same thing I did 3 weeks ago when I lost nothing. Since this is a good week, I’m inclined to ‘trust’ that my body knows what it is doing, and that all the right things are going on. The first time my loss slows for the same inexplicable reason set, though, I’ll be off rampaging at full volume. Stay tuned: it’s bound to happen soon.
Maybe (probably) there’s more going on under my skin than I realize. My body is adjusting to new foods, and to new amounts, and to a lot more activity than it contended with a year ago. It also has to readjust my muscles, tendons, and metabolism to account for the lighter body weight, the change in mental health (I’m engaged to Howard!!!), and the fact that I’m commuting in high heels now, versus sitting at home in my size 2X jammies, just a donut’s throw away from the pantry.
I think if someone had explained the ups and downs of weight loss when I was standing on the precipice of the program, I might have jumped off the cliff, rather than gird myself for the start/stop of the downward journey. On the other hand, perhaps it’s good to know that one’s weight fluctuates, wildly sometimes, and that so long as the arrow continues to point generally downward, that’s good. For the record, I have been losing weight on WW for 26 weeks, and so my ‘average’ weekly loss is 3.08 pounds. That includes one week where I lost only 0.60 pounds, and another when I lost 7.5. So, there it is.
But anyway, back to cutting off my feet to stay fashion-forward….
Seeing as I’m flirting with the 160s, a place that feels decidedly normal to me, I am jonesing to buy a pair of size 8 no-stretch jeans. I looked around a little bit this week while I was out buying a trampoline for DS (Man, that was a good call!), and I discovered that my historic favorite brand, Chic, only does ‘short’ and ‘average’ lengths below size 12. When I got my 10s, I went ahead and bought the average length, in part because I was SO keen to get a size 10 anything that I decided to bite the bullet on the high-water inseam. Now, though, since it’s Chicago in January and anything exposed to the elements will be instantly frozen, I’m less inclined toward revealing anything vulnerable. I tried Target, SteinMart, Kmart, and Levi’s on line, all without luck.
This cannot be that hard. Hello? I cannot be the only woman over 5’8 who needs jeans that go all the way down to her shoes. I refuse to believe that I will have to start wearing Capri pants--or something that looks like Capri, since they aren’t long enough to be considered true long pants. My god, did I just write ‘long pants’? I’ve channeled my grandmother….Next thing, I’ll be frying flour and speaking with a heavy Kentucky accent, complaining about how the clothes don’t smell as fresh when I put them in the dryer as when they’re out ‘on the line’. Anyway, I will not start showing ankle bone, or Achilles heels, or skin, just to get the thinness on top that I need. I will not.
I could probably go to “Fruit” Republic or some boutique-like place and find something awesome and butt-raising, but I am having serious issue with shelling out a lot of dolares for what will be weekend-only gear. I am still dressing ‘casually’ 2 days a week at work, but only because my feet are suffering in heels. Clearly I had put too many years between the last time I wore pumps regularly, and somehow I cannot walk in any kind of heel without crippling myself. Even when I’m dressing ‘down’, I’m still in good sweaters and my best jeans-and those only because all my dress pants have long inseams. And hey, now that I mention it, how is it that I can find all sorts of dress pants that are way long in the leg, but the jeans are conspicuously absent?
Where do all those terrifyingly thin models shop for casual clothes? But that's no solution, either. I'm pretty convinced that those rail-thin women can afford high fashion labels only because they have unloaded the whole of their food budget into their wardrobe. Did you know, by the way, that size 0 is no longer the smallest size? There is now a Size double-zero, for those too 'petite' to wear a size so small, it isn't even an integer. Frankly, I don't get the whole double-zero thing. To my mind, the size 'down' from zero is Negative One. I think they ought to call it that, too. After all, one can only put so many zeros in a size before it gets ridiculous. Give me the silk blouse in size 0000000. It sounds like a murmur, or a coo, rather than a number. If they did it my way, they'd have an infinite number of sizes on the other side of zero.
"I'll take the distressed jeans in size Negative 10, or maybe even 'ten below'. Sad, sad, sad. What's next? Jeans in size Kelvin?
I considered crossing back over to the men’s department, since I can find a 34 inseam with no issue in my size (32, I think). But somehow, I just can’t make myself do it. First, been there/done that, and I’m a lesbian no more. Second, I have a female figure. This week, I checked in with my tape measure and I am 39-31-39. I got curves, serious ones. My teeny (ish) waist and my wide (ish) hips do not work in the flatland forms that are men’s jeans. So, thank you, but I wills save my boy-based shopping sprees for stuffing Howard into his clothes.
I used to buy my clothes at Tall Girl shops, but the store in town is closed and I am loathe to consider buying jeans via the internet. Besides, those jeans were $80 a decade ago, and I am cheaper, a mommy and paying for a wedding now, so I’m unenthusiastic about dropping that much money on something that could very well be part of my transition wardrobe. My tall girlfriend, “Twins” (she lives in Minneapolis, though that is not why I call her that, yuk yuk) suggested Gap Curvy Bootcut, so it looks like I’ll be spending some time with the 20-something crowd, shouting over Hip-Hop music while avoiding eye contact withall the cute things that Gap Kids offers.
On the happy side, even though I will clearly have to clean my house in my dress pants, since I won’t wear floods anywhere, including my own home, Howard and I decided to start shopping for my wedding dress this weekend. It’s sort of funny, since I still have no goal weight in mind, and so I have no idea whether I’m 20, 10, or 2 pounds away from where I’ll be when I walk down the aisle. My only hope now is that it takes me a long time to find my dress, and by then, I’ll be close enough to goal so that the alterations will not involve folding the dress over and cutting it in half. Can you imagine? Gee, what are we going to do with all these extra sequins?
I have an idea: Let’s glue them all together and then sew them to the bottoms of my jeans. Maybe then I’ll get the inseam I want.
A the J(eanless)
I weighed in this morning at 170.50 pounds, down 80.25 pounds overall and almost 4.0 pounds since last Saturday. I am doing exactly what I did last week when I lost only 1.0 pound, as well as the same thing I did 3 weeks ago when I lost nothing. Since this is a good week, I’m inclined to ‘trust’ that my body knows what it is doing, and that all the right things are going on. The first time my loss slows for the same inexplicable reason set, though, I’ll be off rampaging at full volume. Stay tuned: it’s bound to happen soon.
Maybe (probably) there’s more going on under my skin than I realize. My body is adjusting to new foods, and to new amounts, and to a lot more activity than it contended with a year ago. It also has to readjust my muscles, tendons, and metabolism to account for the lighter body weight, the change in mental health (I’m engaged to Howard!!!), and the fact that I’m commuting in high heels now, versus sitting at home in my size 2X jammies, just a donut’s throw away from the pantry.
I think if someone had explained the ups and downs of weight loss when I was standing on the precipice of the program, I might have jumped off the cliff, rather than gird myself for the start/stop of the downward journey. On the other hand, perhaps it’s good to know that one’s weight fluctuates, wildly sometimes, and that so long as the arrow continues to point generally downward, that’s good. For the record, I have been losing weight on WW for 26 weeks, and so my ‘average’ weekly loss is 3.08 pounds. That includes one week where I lost only 0.60 pounds, and another when I lost 7.5. So, there it is.
But anyway, back to cutting off my feet to stay fashion-forward….
Seeing as I’m flirting with the 160s, a place that feels decidedly normal to me, I am jonesing to buy a pair of size 8 no-stretch jeans. I looked around a little bit this week while I was out buying a trampoline for DS (Man, that was a good call!), and I discovered that my historic favorite brand, Chic, only does ‘short’ and ‘average’ lengths below size 12. When I got my 10s, I went ahead and bought the average length, in part because I was SO keen to get a size 10 anything that I decided to bite the bullet on the high-water inseam. Now, though, since it’s Chicago in January and anything exposed to the elements will be instantly frozen, I’m less inclined toward revealing anything vulnerable. I tried Target, SteinMart, Kmart, and Levi’s on line, all without luck.
This cannot be that hard. Hello? I cannot be the only woman over 5’8 who needs jeans that go all the way down to her shoes. I refuse to believe that I will have to start wearing Capri pants--or something that looks like Capri, since they aren’t long enough to be considered true long pants. My god, did I just write ‘long pants’? I’ve channeled my grandmother….Next thing, I’ll be frying flour and speaking with a heavy Kentucky accent, complaining about how the clothes don’t smell as fresh when I put them in the dryer as when they’re out ‘on the line’. Anyway, I will not start showing ankle bone, or Achilles heels, or skin, just to get the thinness on top that I need. I will not.
I could probably go to “Fruit” Republic or some boutique-like place and find something awesome and butt-raising, but I am having serious issue with shelling out a lot of dolares for what will be weekend-only gear. I am still dressing ‘casually’ 2 days a week at work, but only because my feet are suffering in heels. Clearly I had put too many years between the last time I wore pumps regularly, and somehow I cannot walk in any kind of heel without crippling myself. Even when I’m dressing ‘down’, I’m still in good sweaters and my best jeans-and those only because all my dress pants have long inseams. And hey, now that I mention it, how is it that I can find all sorts of dress pants that are way long in the leg, but the jeans are conspicuously absent?
Where do all those terrifyingly thin models shop for casual clothes? But that's no solution, either. I'm pretty convinced that those rail-thin women can afford high fashion labels only because they have unloaded the whole of their food budget into their wardrobe. Did you know, by the way, that size 0 is no longer the smallest size? There is now a Size double-zero, for those too 'petite' to wear a size so small, it isn't even an integer. Frankly, I don't get the whole double-zero thing. To my mind, the size 'down' from zero is Negative One. I think they ought to call it that, too. After all, one can only put so many zeros in a size before it gets ridiculous. Give me the silk blouse in size 0000000. It sounds like a murmur, or a coo, rather than a number. If they did it my way, they'd have an infinite number of sizes on the other side of zero.
"I'll take the distressed jeans in size Negative 10, or maybe even 'ten below'. Sad, sad, sad. What's next? Jeans in size Kelvin?
I considered crossing back over to the men’s department, since I can find a 34 inseam with no issue in my size (32, I think). But somehow, I just can’t make myself do it. First, been there/done that, and I’m a lesbian no more. Second, I have a female figure. This week, I checked in with my tape measure and I am 39-31-39. I got curves, serious ones. My teeny (ish) waist and my wide (ish) hips do not work in the flatland forms that are men’s jeans. So, thank you, but I wills save my boy-based shopping sprees for stuffing Howard into his clothes.
I used to buy my clothes at Tall Girl shops, but the store in town is closed and I am loathe to consider buying jeans via the internet. Besides, those jeans were $80 a decade ago, and I am cheaper, a mommy and paying for a wedding now, so I’m unenthusiastic about dropping that much money on something that could very well be part of my transition wardrobe. My tall girlfriend, “Twins” (she lives in Minneapolis, though that is not why I call her that, yuk yuk) suggested Gap Curvy Bootcut, so it looks like I’ll be spending some time with the 20-something crowd, shouting over Hip-Hop music while avoiding eye contact withall the cute things that Gap Kids offers.
On the happy side, even though I will clearly have to clean my house in my dress pants, since I won’t wear floods anywhere, including my own home, Howard and I decided to start shopping for my wedding dress this weekend. It’s sort of funny, since I still have no goal weight in mind, and so I have no idea whether I’m 20, 10, or 2 pounds away from where I’ll be when I walk down the aisle. My only hope now is that it takes me a long time to find my dress, and by then, I’ll be close enough to goal so that the alterations will not involve folding the dress over and cutting it in half. Can you imagine? Gee, what are we going to do with all these extra sequins?
I have an idea: Let’s glue them all together and then sew them to the bottoms of my jeans. Maybe then I’ll get the inseam I want.
A the J(eanless)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 10:17 AM
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