Operation: Skinny Jeans
A little background:
About 3 years ago, I was preparing for an upcoming vacation and I wanted to treat myself to some new clothes for the trip. So one day, I wandered into a hip little clothing shop and fell in love with a great pair of perfectly weathered, super soft, indigo blue skinny jeans.
This was during a time in my life that I was extremely health conscious. I was exercising almost every day and absolutely diligent about eating only whole, nutritious foods. I looked good and felt great - strong, healthy and full of energy. I remember waking up in the morning feeling so refreshed, I’d literally leap out of bed to start my day.
So anyway, it had been a long time since I’d bought any clothes for myself and I really didn’t know what size I was. I grabbed the size I thought I was and tried them on. They were much too big. After going several sizes down, I finally found the jeans that fit me like a glove. They were comfortable, but hugged in all the right places. And they were so flattering; I remember looking at myself in the dressing room mirror and feeling like I’d stepped off the cover of a magazine. As it turned out, I was wearing a size 26 (that’s equivalent to a size 2 US). That’s the smallest I’ve ever been in my adult life, and when I think back to those days, it was without a doubt, the healthiest I’ve ever felt too.
Flash forward 3 years and 2 kids later. I put my own health and fitness on the back burner so I could focus on the needs of my kids. On the surface, it seems like this is the most honorable and selfless way to conduct motherhood, but it’s really not. Think about it: If I don’t take care of the person who takes care of my kids, then the plan doesn’t work very well in the long run, does it?
I pulled my skinny jeans out of the dark recesses of my closet today.
Still size 26, still as cute and soft as ever.
Buying these jeans was a big deal to me back then. And the fact that I fit into them just perfectly so long ago is a great reason to make fitting into them again my GOAL today. Of course, being glowingly healthy is my most important priority but that concept is a bit too general and abstract to serve as a goal. I want to set a benchmark for myself that is actually physically measurable and attainable. And I think 14 weeks is a reasonable amount of time to attain this goal so I’m setting October 4th, 2012 as my goal date to wear my skinny jeans once again. Health and wellness is definitely what I’m after in the long run but in the meantime, I have this little game I get to play with myself.
Going forward, I shall refer to this goal as Operation: Skinny Jeans (or OSJ for short). I took some “before” pictures of myself just now. To celebrate reaching my goal, I just might take some “after” pics in my skinny jeans on October 4th and post the set!
