Losing the last of my pregnancy weight was my goal for this Challenge, but it’s just the beginning of my journey.
With the final 20 pounds of my near 50-pound pregnancy gain gone, it’s time to clean my closets — figuratively and literally.
If you are a size 12 and in mourning, I have about 30 nearly identical black tops and black pants just for you. Each one comes with an illusion waistline and a PSI rating of 175.
Cleaning one’s closet is a guilt-ridden but freeing and enlightening process.
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The guilt, of course, comes with acknowledging the money and time wasted in an attempt to mask rather than solve a weight problem. If I can donate these clothes to a well-fed choir, a sect of nuns who wear pants or out-of-work mimes, I will feel slightly better.
As part of this cleanse, I am also trying to figure out what to do with the Lululemon yoga pants my husband bought me for Christmas 2008.
I could never shell out that much money for designer yoga pants, especially as I don’t do yoga, but I had coveted their butt-forming lines. My husband was kind enough to buy them to support my return to exercise.
The size 10 pants’ tags and free alteration slip remain attached. Now they are too big, as well as too long. Worse, I need those Lulu figure-shaping lines more than ever, as it would appear my behind is MIA since some time last month.
To that end, I have penned a new online ad in the lost-and-found section. “Lost: junk. Last seen: in trunk. Sentimental value. If you find it, or just a portion of it, on the black market to be sucked up into some Kim Kardashian-type transplant, please return for reward.”
As I clean my closet this week and take a greater look at the fabric of my life, I am discovering, like many of the other Health Challenge participants, other personal goals I want to achieve.
Keeping the weight off for all of us will mean continuing to do tough workouts and controlling our food intake. But the difference is that much of that is now built into our timetables, and our habits and support systems.
I am concerned about saying goodbye to Mr. January (a.k.a. PISE trainer Chris Hinton). I wouldn’t have got into the gym, never mind built up such muscle or lost so much weight, all while avoiding injury, without his expertise.
I now have a great appreciation for the important role of strength and conditioning coaches for all levels of athletes. And in the final few weeks, if he can show me how to return my behind to its rightful place, I will also count him as a miracle-worker.
The support of family and friends is also key, and my husband is investigating family gym passes so that fitness is a family goal and activity we share.
To that end, I dedicate this column to my daughter’s great-grandmother, Ruth, who died Saturday at age 89. She will no doubt roll her eyes that the column in her name mentions my derrière three times. How does that look to the church folk?
Having good health and a measure of good fortune means being able to see your grandchildren marry and your great-grandchildren born. It means being able to enjoy the years, if they are many.
And it means having enough time to clean out your closets, whatever they contain.