Sure I Know It’s Apocalypse, But Can’t It Wait Till I Kiss Your Lips

(I know I skipped “Struggle to Fit Into Your Skinny Pants” last Friday. I did so for a multitude of personal and messy reasons that I won’t go into here, but I apologize, and I’ll be back to that this Friday)



I am in kind of a “situation” with the bottom half of my wardrobe. I have one plain black skirt. One pair of black pants, and that’s about it. Oh, jeans, but Monday- Thursday those do me no good. My black denim leggings have finally reached a point where they are worn out enough they are not fit for work wear and I just have not managed to replace them yet. I know some of you have suggested thrifting and I am willing to give that a try, but so far I have not had the time to do so (the time you have to put into thrifting to find one decent pair of well fitting work pants, in my experience, is substantial. I might get lucky and find a pair first stop, but I’m not counting on it.)



So I’m mostly looking at wearing dresses right now, and I do love dresses, but I also get tired of the same ones pretty quick. In Fall and Winter it’s so much easier for me to trick them up. Different jacket, different tights, over the knee socks, all kinds of things. In Spring and Summer I find it harder, but I am willing to see what I can do.



Today I wanted to carry this bag from Morocco, because I don’t carry it as often as I’d like. That’s sort of what brought the whole situation to light, because I had a really hard time styling this with a dress. In fact, as you can see, I didn’t. I went with the one black skirt. The bag just seems to have so much to say on its own and I didn’t want to drown it out with a floral or other print.

How do you trick up your dresses in Summer? Outside of shoes and jewelry, what am I not tapping into?

Tee, American Apparel
Skirt, Target
Clogs, White Mountain via Amazon
Bag, Morocco, via Laura C
Necklace, self made from thrift store and craft store parts

Struggle To Fit Into My Skinny Pants, Week 2

All text. Boring. I know.

So I think we have something pretty interesting dynamics going between Linda and I here. Linda has managed to throw herself into the deep end and swim like she means it. She works out two times a day. She has already lost an inch in her waist AND her hips.

I’m sort of slowly easing into the shallow end. And we are both going about it the “right” way, in that we are doing what we can.

Things I am doing well:

Breakfast, lunch and snacks. I am sticking to the plan. Cereal or a low point (Weight Watchers measurement. I understand it better than calories.) frozen meal. Snacking on fruit (apples this week, much more filling than bananas) and almonds and a Fiber One bar around 4 PM. I ate lunch out with a friend on Wednesday, so I had cereal for dinner. And I cheated this AM and had four Dunkin Donut munchkins that my boss bought us as a reward for...well, life. But I planned that. And I feel OK about it.

Working out. I have done Pilates or taken a walk every day but Tuesday.

Things I am doing OK:

Stairs. I managed all three trips (Two times all the way up and all the way down, basically 8 flights. I do one around 11 AM, One around 2 PM and one around 5 PM) Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday I managed two trips each day.

Working out. I’m not trying to confuse. I am doing well with doing it every day, but I need to do more. I need to make sure I am doing at least 30 minutes. Right now I am doing 10 some days. A single 10 minute abs work out. And that is better than nothing. Right now my main goal is to make myself do something once a day 4 days a week. My larger goal is 30 minutes a day 4 days a week. I know that’s not much, but it’s more than I’ve been doing. Once I get there I will make a new goal. Maybe 45 minutes.

Things I am not doing so well:

Dinner. I am not doing so smashing at portion control OR what I am selecting for myself. Working on that is my number one goal next week.


I decided not to take my measurements this week since I don’t expect there is any real improvement there. I don’t want to bog myself down too much with numbers, because what I am more focused on is changing my lifestyle. If I can get that under control, fitting into the pants will be natural.

How did you do this week?
Would you like me to link to your entry? Let me know!

Linda
Rebecca
LaShaune
Lisa

Struggle to Fit Into My Skinny Pants, Week 1

I honestly cannot believe I am showing you this.



I think the bad fit doesn’t not translate well to pics, but those babies are squeezing me like sausage in casing. It’s not cool. I want them to feel good and I want no muffin.

I had Nathan take down my measurements and e-mail them to me this morning. This is what the e-mail said:

Waist: 30"
Hips: 39"
Thighs: 38.5"
Heart: too big to measure

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.


So. Progress this week. Not much. I got a stomach bug so my meal plan went sort of out the window. As did my exercise. But tomorrow is a new day and Sunday is a new week. So I am going to give it a solid go.

I did want to clear up a couple of things:

1. I do eat snacks. Fiber One bars or fruit mostly. Although I have decided that bananas seem to magically make me MORE hungry than I was before I ate them, so I’m going to try something else next week, maybe apples and a few almonds.

2. The “don’t starve yourself” thing. I got a ton of emails telling me not to starve myself. I promise I am not. But here is the thing. I’ve been overeating in a big time super serious way. Like, way overeating. That’s why I gained weight. I don’t tend to gain weight that easily, I have to mean it. And I have meant it this past year. So now I am not over eating. When I go from over eating to not overeating, I am going to be hungry. I swear I spent the first month I was on Weight Watchers hungry and I ate every little thing I was allowed. It’s just the facts. So have no fear, I am not starving myself.

How did you do this week?

Did you blog about it, if you did, let me know and I'll add a link to the post.

Struggling Superstars:
Linda
LaShaune
Rebecca
Jen (whose etsy sells the hairsticks I mentioned in the previous post!)
Lisa

Fat Bottomed Girls You Make the Rockin' World Go Round

Linda and I are embarking on a challenge to fit into our skinny pants.

Struggle to Fit Into Your Skinny Pants Challenge.





Look, most people have a pair. I have 2 or 3 at this point. And since I can’t afford new pants, and I’m uncomfortable at this size, I intend to fix it. I am astounded at the difference 10 pounds can make on my body, self image and self esteem*. Everyone is encouraged to make their own plan, because everyone is different. This is mine:

~Cereal for breakfast. No skipping breakfast.

~Cereal or a low-cal frozen dinner for lunch (this is because I am lazy. If I had the will power to make creative low-fat lunches I would, but I don’t right now, and I am going to work with myself where I am and stay honest.

~Portion control at dinner (boo, I am normally starving at dinner)

~work out at least 4 times a week

~go up and down the stairs at the office at least 3 times a day every weekday

~Portion control on weekends, with one free meal per week

Every Friday we will post our progress and talk about how we did the past week.

We will start this Friday by posting our measurements (you don’t HAVE to do this to participate, I don’t particularly want to do this. But we don’t care to post our weight and I know having to tell you this will motivate me to make sure I make changes.) I will also post a picture of JUST how unflattering the skinny pants are. I'm terrified of that, to be honest. I do my best to edit what I post online so that you and the rest of the world only see what I feel like are the most flattering of looks and poses. But I really really want to do this, and I know from experience that keeping it in a public forum (Weight Watchers meetings worked wonders for me) keeps me motivated, and in the end, I will be SO proud of what I have accomplished.

We would love to have you join us if you want to. If you have a pair of skinny pants that are just hanging there in your wardrobe, or folded away in a drawer, taunting you, let us know.

*Look, I am not saying I am fat. I am not fat. I am not saying you are fat. You are lovely. I am saying I am uncomfortable with my size and would like to be smaller. That's all.