So a strange thing happens to me every summer: I gain about ten pounds between June and October. This has been going on for about 4 years now, and it wasn't until last summer that I realized there was a pattern and it wasn't just the start of my slide into obesity.
But - and this is where you're going to roll your eyes - I'm not actually positive that I gain the weight. It could be an illusion caused by the summer's increased humidity and water retention plus being more self-conscious because of wearing skimpier summer clothing. The only time I ever get on the scale is at the doctor's office*.
Generally I judge my weight by how well my clothes fit, and since I wear non-elastic jeans about 3 times a week, it's pretty easy to tell if there's an increase in the amount of muffin top spillover at the waist or if, looking down at my thighs, they look like plump sausages in a denim casing, decorated with cat's whiskers at the crotch. And because it's summer, a thin t-shirt doesn't do much to hide the ooze over the top of the waistband of my jeans - you can see a fabric-covered bulge clearly outlined in a way that my winter wardrobe of seventeen layers doesn't show.
Okay, so it's seasonal, and it sort of doesn't matter if it's in my head or real, since it'll go away. But it means I spend nearly half the year feeling fat and uncomfortable in my own skin, and getting into bathing suits takes more courage than it does for a holiday in the Caribbean in February.
I'm writing about this now because the summer downward spiral has started and I'm feeling blobby and gross - it's like having PMS bloat for five months. (During, of all cruelties of fate, bathing suit season, goddamit!) I don't really know the answer - if I should just buy a scale and clear it up for once and for all, if I should have a larger summer wardrobe (my clothes still fit ... I just don't perceive that they fit me as well or as flatteringly), if I should talk about it with my shrink and work on body acceptance no matter what season it is - obviously I've got some a few issues still around my weight. Maybe there is no easy answer to this one.
* Unsurprisingly, if I owned a scale I would use it to torment myself. So scales are Not Allowed in the house, apart from cooking scales. And - according to the doctor's office - my weight has been stable for about 5 years now. But I'm not usually at the doctor's in summer either; plus you can be five pounds heavier or lighter on any given day just because of water retention ... You see now why I don't have a scale?
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1 comment:
No easy answers, indeed. All the fat acceptance in the world won't help us when our clothes don't seem quite right. And buying a new wardrobe is such a drag, even if it does make sense.
I've been looking at women in bathing suits all over this summer. And I realized that no matter what size the woman is, if the suit is the right size she can work it, even a bikini. Okay, I only wore mine once, but I tried really hard to own my body in a bikini and love it now, not ten or twenty years from now when I'd be delighted to be this size.
Eh, I really hate "process". I want total instant gratification.
And I love the blog concept, too.
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