I can’t be fat, right?

Weight has a tendency to creep up on you. You wear your clothes, and then they feel a little snug. So you get more comfortable clothes from your drawer or the back of the closet. Ah, sweat pants! Then you go shopping for more clothes (or in my case, get clothes that my sister was purging from her overstuffed closet), and get clothes that fit. Gradually, ever so gradually, you stop wearing your clothes that previously fit, and get bigger clothes. Your clothes still fit! But they’re different clothes.

Then one day you pull out your jeans (that all used to fit), and find that you can’t button them. The fact that you can fit into your new jeans doesn’t matter. You can’t fit into clothes you used to be able to wear.

So now you have a choice — ignore the fact that your old clothes are in fact too small, which means that you are now in fact too big; or make the choice to get back into your old clothes.

This happened to me. I knew I was eating too much and not exercising enough. I felt like I was gaining weight. But my clothes still fit. The fact that most of them were stretchy and knit didn’t change the fact that they still fit. But it also didn’t hide the fact that I was gaining weight. But then come out the jeans. My new jeans fit. (But what size are they? I don’t look.) And my old jeans? I can get into them, but they’re tight. Not too tight to wear at all, but they’re not exactly comfortable.

But this has been an effective tool. Wearing clothes that are too comfortable makes it too easy to eat too much. Not only does something tight across your tummy make you not as hungry, but it is also a physical reminder that you are too fat, so ought to not eat as much.

This is one of my problems — when I get to a certain point of weight loss, or to where my clothes fit, I start feeling good about myself, and feel like I’ve got this weight thing licked. Then I slack off. And eat more and exercise less. Fooling myself into thinking that I’m still doing what I had been doing. Knowing I’m lying to myself. Gotta stop it!