Waisting Time

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Waisting Time Goldilocks.  She went for a walk in her closet.  Fall weather had suddenly arrived and, sadly, it was time to start thinking about long pants.  The big cliffhanger question in this fairy tale?  Would our heroine, the perennial serial dieter, once again at goal weight, find any pants in the closet that fit!?

This one is too loose:  Buried deep in the bowels of the basement is a cedar-lined closet for clothes (and assorted clutter) that are not often worn.  Our bedroom’s closet is just too small.  At the top of the closet, on a shelf above my head, was a box of unknown contents.  In the box, once I managed to wrestle it down with only a few things falling on me the process, I discovered several pairs of pants.  And a jean skirt.  So I climbed the two flights to my bedroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror and started trying them on.  Too big.  Too big.  Really too big.  Hmm…. not nearly as big but pretty baggy in the butt.  Too big.

Rather than unleashing Pandora when I opened my mystery box, I has opened the floodgates to memories of the past.  This was my “fat pants” stash.  You know – the pants I “outgrew” while losing weight but that I was just afraid to get rid of because, well, after all, I’m a yo-yo dieter.  Every time in the past that I got too small for the pants, I eventually rebounded and needed to wear them once again.  My excuse for not tossing them?  It’s hard to find pants that fit me comfortably.  I wasn’t going to get rid of something I might need again.  And that, dear readers, is probably the exact thinking that allowed me to regain weight time and time again.

But this time, there is no going back.  And that means – no fat pants tucked away, high on a shelf, almost forgotten, just in case.  Every pair of those pants that came out of that box, and the jean skirt too, has now been donated to charity.  Gone.  Just like my yo-yo dieting:)  And we can consider this a self-fulfilling prophecy.  No fat pants = no fat Goldilocks.

This one is too tight:  But what about the pants hanging in my bedroom closet?  The ones waiting, unworn and untested, for the day when I might once again fit within their seams.  Time to try them on.  I had my suspicions.  And, sure enough, most of the pants were too small.  But let me clarify:  the pants fit fine in the butt and the hips and the thighs, but not the waist.  Ah, my mother was right; yes, Karen, there is a middle-aged (drat those female hormones) spread.  Why did I predict that I might find the pants too tight around my waist?  Because the last time, and the time before, when I hit my goal weight, I discovered, much to my dismay, this very phenomenon of aging body-itis.  Hoped it wasn’t permanent.  Hoped weight loss and crunches could make it go away.  But no.  And that, dear readers, is just one reason why my blog name is what it is!

So, as I had done with the fat pants, I decided to let go of the past and move forward.  I am a realist, after all.  So no more thinking that my middle will whittle back to its more youthful size.  Yes, I’ll still work on my abs.  But, my muffin top is probably here to stay.  So the pants have got to go.  Besides, I don’t shop often and styles have changed and those pants are just a wee bit dated.  The “What not to Wear” folks would have been tossing them for sure, tight or not.

This one is just right:  So, hi ho, hi ho, a-shopping I did go.  Because just days later I was going out to dinner with friends and really did not want to show up in my sloppy sweats.  Store coupons in hand, I headed out.  Fully expecting this shopping trip to be like so many before, fat or thin:  futile as I struggle to find a pair of pants that fit comfortably and look semi-decent.  Maybe you can relate.  But, really, is there anything as challenging as finding a great pair of jeans!?

Will wonders never cease!  An hour or so and several dollars later, I had four new pairs of pants.  I can’t remember the last time I bought so many.  Okay, I can’t remember the last time I bought ANY.  My empty closet rack, just recently devoid of fitting bottoms, was now restocked.  Hello, stretch denim, my new best friend:)

And that, my blogworld friends, is how this horror story became a fairy tale and ended happily ever after.

Do you keep clothes around that don’t fit, either too big or to small?  What’s your favorite style or brand of jean or pant?

Fit Stanley update:  The little guy is off to visit The Chick at Fat Chick Fed Up.  Her name was randomly and blindly chosen by my husband:) 

What a mind game this is for me.  Eating healthy.

Some days I have it.  Some days I don’t.  The mental aspect, I mean.  The piece that really makes the difference for me.

When I shared, some time ago, my desire to be normal with my eating, this was a piece of it.  And some days that piece is a square peg that won’t fit into a round hole no matter how hard I try.  But some days that piece fits together with all the other pieces and completes the puzzle with little or no effort.

Recently, I had a few very easy weeks.  I didn’t know why and I didn’t question myself.  I just accepted that the switch had flipped and I was not only eating well and less, but the mental aspect was there.  My thinking was… well, I don’t know what my thinking was.  But I know what it was NOT.  And it was not obsessing about food or feeling deprived or anything along those lines.

This past week, however, my thinking was labored.

So, because I often get caught up in over-analyzing things, I have spent some time wondering what changed.  What’s different.  And how to get back to where I was.  Because I like that mental place better:)

I think it started with my trip.  Some of the off-plan things I ate.  And over-snacking on the plane.  Which in and of itself was not really so bad.  But when I got home I brought with me some travel snacks that I don’t usually keep around and my mind kept visiting them.  And wanting them.  And I suspect the stress of some things going on at the time was contributing even though I was not consciously thinking “I am stressed so I want to comfort myself with food.”  And I didn’t feel well, either allergies or a cold, something off.  I wasn’t drinking as much water or eating as many vegetables.  I didn’t even exercise as much as usual.  It was all sort of slipping, just a bit.  Not enough to worry me that I was on the road to “out of control.”  But enough to set of a little alarm in my head.  Ding, ding, ding, you ding dong.  (Oh now I am thinking about the chocolate cake Ding Dongs!)

I like myself better when I am the person whose head is on straight about eating.  I like life better.  I want to be back at that place that was feeling great and filled with optimism and almost, dare I say it, easy.  I’d like to say I know exactly what to do to get there.  But what I know is that it really isn’t about DOING anymore, it is about thinking.  And being.  Which in turn lead to the doing.

Once upon a time I thought that I just needed to DO it.  Me and Nike.  And maybe, some days, doing it is enough.  But my new paradigm is about what is going on in my head as much as what is going into my mouth. I keep reflecting back to the few recent weeks when I felt different.  Felt good.  Felt right.  Felt close to normal.  And that feeling is what carried me through the days of eating well, not the other way around.  Maybe it’s a chicken/egg conundrum.  The action vs. the mindset.  But it sure feels to me right now that my mindset is the missing piece that keeps the puzzle from completion.  That the mental aspect is driving the other aspects instead of the other way around.

As I sit here and write this, and ruminate, and speculate, it strikes me how often on this journey I have changed my thinking.  Let’s say I have “evolved” my thinking.  Puts a more positive spin on it, I think.

My husband has forever been espousing that exercise is mostly a mental game.  Clearly, the other components of healthy living are, for me, as well.  So time to get my head in the game again.  And out of the food gutter.

Did I make sense here?  Any mental game playing in any aspect of your own life?