Friday, January 13, 2012

Do These Jeans Make My Butt Look Smaller?

Five am.  Time to assess whether it's okay to get on the scale or not.  There is criteria in place, you know, to determine this.  This is no willy-nilly operation.  Any person who has been a professional dieter like me, develops their own criteria to ensure the best possible results on the scale.  When I attended Weight Watcher meetings, I would have a weigh-in outfit that I wore every week.  It was a constant I could control when standing in line to climb onto a scale big enough to weigh a baby elephant.  Thankfully, my hot pants, tube top and Old Navy $2.99 electric blue flip flops were never the cause of a gain.  Just kidding.  I did gain once.  While we're talking about Weight Watchers, it annoys me that I still receive junk mail from them, but it annoys me even more that they're right.

But no matter what the scale says, or if they wear the pink or the green hot pants to the weigh-in, no one really believes they are shrinking until 1) Someone mentions how great they look....have they lost weight?;  or 2) Their clothes start fitting a little differently.      

When you begin this process of losing weight or getting healthy, and the numbers start going down, it's easy to get a little, hmmmm, what's the word?  Obsessive.  Yes, that'll do nicely.  Obsessed.  Hyper-focused.  Very enthusiastic, so to speak.  We're working hard and we want the scale to Recognize.  In my opinion, the scale has only one job to do:  Go Down.  That's all I'm really asking.  If it won't Go Down, my distant second choice of its workload:  Stay The Same.  Thankfully, we've had this scale for 9 years and it knows what's expected.    

Since it has been following orders and mostly Going Down, unofficially, I've lost 12 pounds. (I know because once my criteria is met, I weigh every single day.  Sometimes multiple times.  There is important scientific tracking going on here!)  In order to not seem so "obsessed", I only update my weight tote-board once per week, on Sunday.  It seems less rabid.   It helps that I've been watching what I eat.  So far, no yeasty goodness has passed my lips since January 1.  (Unless you count the one-half chocolate cupcake I shared, no frosting, with my husband that my dad brought over.)  I have limited my sugar intake to what is naturally contained in balsamic vinegar and other fine foods.  Oh, and the occasional bite of fruit.  I've cut out grains and have pretty much left Brian in charge of making the food.  I am not a foodie, but I absolutely appreciate those who are.  I even appreciate those who aren't if it means I don't have to cook.  Yea me, I also did not eat a Chex Mix rye chip that was very rudely calling my name at Girl Scouts yesterday.     

Most days I wear my cropped sweatpants and a t-shirt because I'm very messy around the house.  I'm forever getting something on my clothes while cooking, eating, or cleaning something, which actually happens quite rarely.  

But not today.  

First I had to weigh in and was thrilled to found the scale had Gone Down.  I stood in front of the mirror and looked from side to side, trying to determine if things were getting smaller.  I couldn't really tell.  Maybe my peach tattoo was a little higher than it used to be?  I measured my muscles.  They didn't look much bigger, but they felt stronger.  My unmentionables seemed to fit the same way they had been, so I just wasn't sure.  But I had agreed to meet a friend at Starbucks and so I had a large problem.  It was called, "What Should I Wear?"       

I got my other pair of jeans, the clean ones, and shimmied in.  They didn't really feel any looser.  Brian came to the scene to investigate.

"Turn around," he said.  "Those look like they might be a little looser in the butt."

What?!  Looser in the butt?  It must be working!  Eating meat like a T-Rex and pushing strollers with 40# kids through the mud at the Nature Center must be working!  I ran to the bedroom to find a shirt.  What would I wear to accentuate my smaller butt?  I grabbed a shirt that is "the perfect color for me", as I've been told and it has a square neck.  And I stood in front of the bathroom mirror with my clothes on, preening and peering, checking myself out.

"Look at this shirt," I said.  "It's hanging straight down.  It's not touching any lumps or bumps or anything.  And my jeans.  They're usually stretchy, but not this stretchy when I first put them on."  

"Yeah," my sweet husband said.  "It looks like your boobs are bigger than your stomach."    

Some women might get mad at a statement like that. Take it as some sort of criticism.  An attack, even.  But not me.  Not today, anyway.  Today, I'm taking progress any way it comes.     

  

  

3 comments:

  1. Awesome, Georgia! I'm loving following along on this blog, and I actually think I'm going to try this... did I just say that?! I don't want to read the book, though, because it just sounds WAY too scientific for me, and I'm just not into that kind of stuff. So I'll just do the basics that you and your Shanon are doing and see if it kills me or not to give up bread.

    - Crystal

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  2. Your boobs are bigger than your stomach?!?! You are awesome! The trudging uphill with 4 kids is putting you ahead of me, but we know we're not in competition against each other. We're in the battle against large butts and bellies that serve as a shelf for our tatas. You inspire me.

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  3. I wish my boobs were *actually* bigger than my stomach, but alas, that has not come to pass. However, that particular shirt made it seem so, and so we must count that as victory.

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