"Do jeans shrink after having them a while?"
That's the text I sent to my sister yesterday. I had to wiggle myself into a pair of previously great-ish fitting jeans. It had to be my dryer. It just had to be.
Or the few pounds I've gained that seem to want to bring their friends along to the party.
It's also the style of the jeans. They are a lower rise cut than what this body should be wearing. My genes pretty much allow me to lose (and gain) weight pretty proportionately, but after having been overweight most of my life and having two kids, the belly area just needs to have a little extra support. And the low rise jeans don't do it. When I was at my slimmest I could get away with it if I was wearing a cami to prevent anyone from getting a flash my lower tummy. I knew they weren't the best cut for me, but I got them for 70% off and they were trendy and cute...something I'd never experienced in a jean.
Now that I'm struggling a bit with some old eating habits the jeans have become a bit unflattering...or to put it better when I'm wearing them I'm sporting a huge muffin top. And then it makes everything look worse. I tried to put them on again today. I felt so self conscious and thought my shirt looked awful, too. I started feeling completely down on myself which then makes everything worse. The house feels like more of a mess than it is. One day without a workout feels like a year of sitting on the couch. Every shortcoming I have magnifies in my mind.
I didn't want to change the jeans or admit that they weren't a good fit for my body. It would feel like I was giving up.
But I did it. I changed out of the cute, trendy jeans into a more flattering pair. A pair that did a better job of masking my perfect imperfections. Those jeans, too, were flattering, but a better cut for my body. I kid you not, suddenly the shirt that had just moments ago that I thought looked awful looked much nicer when I was wearing jeans that fit the right way. I wasn't nearly so discouraged about my other shortcoming. Rather than feeling overwhelmed and dejected I had hope. All because I changed my jeans.
How many times do we feel bad about ourselves because of how a piece of clothing looks? We rarely think "that's a bad cut for my body", we think "my body is bad for that cut." We place the emphasis on our own imperfections, which for most of us discourages us even further. We get to the point of thinking "why even try to improve my health?" That's the point I was at because of my jeans. A lousy pair of jeans. I was really going to let THAT determine my worth?
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