Ms Green Jeans

[darkemeralds]

While I dawdle on a plateau as far as the scale is concerned, my clothes seem to indicate that I'm still heading steadily down the slope.

Last night I laid out several outfits from the back of my closet, then pressed everything neatly and put it all away, figuring that in another month or so I'd fit into most of it, and could photograph the clothes then.

On a crazy whim this morning, I thought I'd just try on one of the pairs of jeans.



They not only fit, but were already too big.

This stunned me so much that I couldn't talk myself out of wearing them to work even though they are, admittedly, rather ugly. (Seriously: avocado green jeans. I shouldn't have. Really.) The only reason I've hung onto them is that they Represent Something--the last good moment before my life went to hell in 2006.

These green jeans have been hanging in the back of my closet for five years saying, "Look, accept facts: you're never going to fit into me again, so just give me away and move on," while I said, "Noooooo! No! I want you! I hug you! I keep you! A tortured hope!"

And suddenly, in one day, they're saying, "Look, accept facts: you're never going to fit into me again, so just give me away and move on," on the other side of that divide. And oddly enough, part of me is still saying, "Noooooo!"

It's the strangest feeling! I've invested a lot in these ugly avocado green jeans over the last five years, and it never crossed my mind that I might actually become too small for them. I just wanted to fit into them again. Now, after one wearing, they're goin' in the donation bag.

Within another ten pounds, I will have entered body-size territory that I have never steadily inhabited. I passed through that country in my early 30s, and returned twice for flying visits before ballooning up again in bewilderment.

By the time I reach the end of this diet, I will be in territory that I set out from when refrigerators were avocado green. I have no adult frame of reference for life in that world at all.

It's very strange to think that nothing in my closet--perhaps not even shoes--will still fit me by then.

Comments

[alex_beecroft]

I guess that I may not have noticed any great change, because I think I was still in the range of "acceptable shapes for middle aged mothers" when I started dieting. But I started dieting because I had started to notice I was becoming physically compromised - it was getting too hard to do the housework in one go, and I couldn't keep up with the family on holidays. I was also getting swollen ankles, which were painful and distressing. So I think possibly I started to lose weight before the point where anyone else would have felt it necessary to start treating me differently because of my size - in which case naturally I haven't noticed much change.

The only change I have noticed is that the people in my dance side don't ask me if I'm feeling OK or whether I need a break any more. (Sometimes I do - so this is a disadvantage!)

OTOH, I'm privately much happier with how I look and how much energy I have - even though, for me, it is only 'a bit more'. That may be because I've lost weight but haven't added any exercise, so you're getting thinner and fitter, while I'm only getting thinner.

[darkemeralds]

I meant to return to this comment sooner. It has helped me answer the question that your earlier comment got me asking myself, to wit: what are my expectations from losing this weight?

The word "privately" here really nails it for me. That's the key I was looking for, in the face of a good deal of questioning about the purpose and value of weight loss. To be "privately much happier with how I look," it seems to me, is a perfectly adequate, perfectly complete answer to that question.

What's astonishing is that I didn't think of it! So thank you very much for providing it.

[alex_beecroft]

There is such a lot of politics around weight that sometimes I think you can feel guilty for selling out to the body-image police. (You know - it's anti-feminist to lose weight because it puts you on the side of fat shamers etc. But to gain weight is not to feel empowered.)

In the end I think it has to come down to whether you're happier or not. I don't think it's feminist to shame women into being fat any more than it is to shame them into being thin. And I don't think it's anti-feminist to say "I've *been* fat against the wishes of society. So society hasn't shamed me into this - I've done it because I want to."

It should be up to everyone to decide what level of weight and fitness they want to maintain, I think. If they like themselves as they are or are becoming something they like, then that's all good. (Bar the extremes of anorexia or the kind of obesity where you're unable to get up and walk around.)

[darkemeralds]

Very nicely stated. I have felt a bit guilty for "selling out," and though that guilt is as nothing compared to the satisfaction I'm deriving from getting thinner, it's there.

There are so many years and so much shame between my current self and whatever thinner self once existed as a teenager, that I couldn't begin to tease the strands apart at this late date. Have I been shamed into losing weight? I no longer know. I just know that the effort involved in losing the weight is actually less than the effort required to accept myself and be "happy" in my obesity. I know. I've tried both.

I suppose that's the very definition of selling out, isn't it? Oh well. It's my body and no one else's.

Thanks again for the excellent insights.

[alex_beecroft]

*g* Well, thank you for letting me talk about this. I want to, but I never get around to doing it, partly because "Alex Beecroft" is too public an entity to be able to discuss things that are quite private.

To sum up, I don't think you're selling out at all. I think you've just reached the point of going "I've heard all the arguments from both sides, and now I have decided to do with my own body what I want to do."

It sounds like liberation to me :)

[darkemeralds]

I have an icon for that!

Thanks again.