Out of Retirement

The last few months have been tough for me mentally. Not the workouts themselves, but I went back to weighing myself regularly as I slowly re-improved my diet (the ruffles and oreo kick really hurt me more than I realized). I’ve always hated the scale, especially since my body tends to “get stuck” at certain numbers. I start thinking about nothing but the Number, and forgot about how I feel, how I’ve improved in my workouts and races, and how my clothes fit. All I can get out of my mind is that I’ve lost minimal if any weight from week to week. It stinks. I also have to admit that working with four “perfect” athletes at GOTR did negatively impact my self-image, which is so stupid, because the whole point of GOTR is to get out of the girl box. Still, I’m glad that I was able to show the girls that you can be healthy and active, even if you are slow and fat.

Does the looming Wednesday weigh-in make me reconsider that second handful of peanut M&M’s, yes. Is it worth defining myself by a number? I’m not sure that it is. I’ve been so focused on the number, that I really haven’t noticed the changes that are happening to my body. How do I know that there are changes, even if the scale isn’t reflecting them? Funny you ask…

This year I haven’t had to do nearly the traveling, which means I’ve been basically living in my pj’s. I love pj’s. They are fun, comfortable, and colorful – and very forgiving to the waist line. Since I don’t get out a lot, whenever I do – it’s always a struggle to determine which set of clothing I’m going to fit into. You ladies know what I’m talking about – I have my “skinny” clothes, my “normal” clothes, and my “fat” clothes. Generally I start with the fat clothes, and only if they are really too big do I work my way down. Saves the heartache.

So the week before last, I had to go into the office on a Friday. It was pretty cold out, yet I didn’t want to get dressed up because I was traveling for the next two weeks, and would spend plenty of time in uncomfortable slacks. However, my staple skirts were really too big – falling off big - and it was too cold to expose my legs. Since I was just looking around the closet, I said what the heck? I’m going to try on those old jeans. The old jeans that were officially retired over a year ago… because I was about to split the rear-end.

Up and zip, no struggle. I couldn’t believe it! They were actually comfortable!! I called everyone I knew to tell them my retired jeans were working for me! I was so excited that I even tried on the “skinny” jeans (not to be confused with “skinny jeans” which are ugly) and they fit too! Rather than try everything on that I owned, I decided to leave myself glowing that something was coming out of retirement.

Well I packed for my trip, and honestly didn’t even think about trying any of my retired slacks on. I just grabbed my current pants, some tops, and threw them in the suitcase. It was when I got to Greenville that I realized my pants were way too big. Oh well, at least I was comfortable, right?

Well last night, even though I’m suffering through my bi-annual time, I decided to try on some of my other clothes. This was not because I thought any of them fit – it was more because I don’t have 4 outfits to wear into the office this week without repeating from last week.

Guess who is wearing her favorite pair of retired chocolate slacks? With a retired brown patterned blouse? Guess who will be wearing three pairs of completely retired outfits this week??!!

I guess sometimes the scale really doesn’t matter… because my closet is coming out of retirement, and this time I don’t think I’ll be going back to the fat clothes. A slow steady decrease done without serious dieting means that my lifestyle is successfully healthy as it is!