Can I get some fries with that?

I'm finding out that the great thing about having a blog and followers, is that it forces a girl to get up off her duff and actually do something, particularly if your blog is about changing your life/bad attitude for the better.  I have the tendency to sit around, worrying and fretting about things and not taking action.  I end up even more discouraged than I was at the start.  But  having a blog and lovely followers means that people can call me on my sitting-and-whining b.s.

Late Tuesday afternoon, my mom and I were out shopping and she badgered me and badgered me to try on some dress pants at the store where we were.  I planted my feet and grumbled and made faces like a 6-year old but Mum prevailed and before I knew it, I was walking into the fitting room.  Maybe I should have actually thrown myself upon the floor, kicking and screaming to avoid this situation.  Let me tell you, after trying on one pair of trousers, I was inches away from throwing a fit.  Now, part of my getting a life has to do with the necessity of dropping some weight.  I can't say that my weight is to blame for 100% of my dissatisfaction but I'd say it's good for about, ohhhhh, 70-75% of it.  Lots of utter crap comes along with being chunky.  It's difficult, it's discouraging, it produces and perpetuates the whole guilt-shame-fear roller coaster (actually, it can better be described with the slang term of "vomit comet" - if you'll excuse the dreadful picture I just placed in your heads).  Being chunky complicates a lot of things in a lot of ways.  One complication is trying on/buying clothes.  The selection in plus-size departments sucks.  The sizing is not consistent (the last thing a size 20W girl needs is to have to go up several sizes just to get a good fit).  Clothing is either deadly plain or garish (looks like somebody might have had a seat on an actual vomit comet...sorry, sorry), or bimbo-esque or elderly-looking.  It sucks!  But I digress.  Badly.  Anyhoo, I got into my cubicle with a pair of black dress trousers, in my size.  I couldn't even get them over the tops of my thighs.  So, I had to throw my jeans and shoes back on and go searching for a larger pair.  I went a size up.  My heart dropped into my stomach.  I could barely shoe-horn my butt into this 2nd pair, and there was no way on the Good Lord's verdant earth that I was going to be able to button and zip the damn things.  To make matters worse, they had such a low flippin' rise that in order to wear them out in public, a girl would have to have a gosh-darn bikini wax first.  I'd like to know what nutjob would design a pair of plus-size trousers to hit a girl right at the worst part of her body: her lower abs.  I'm not saying I need a waistband that goes up to my bosom, but this just was not happening.  All the pants I tried were like that.  Talk about demoralizing.

So, here's where the getting up off my duff part begins.  I walked out of that fitting room, thoroughly disgusted and fully in-touch with my inner Linda Blair.  Once the head-spinning and levitating were over I decided that something is going to be done about this, damn it!  Tuesday evening, I had my last soda (for some time) and my last piece of chocolate (for the next week).  Six years ago, I swore off soda as well as high fructose corn syrup, aspertame, sucralose and other fake sweeteners. I eased up on the white bread/pasta/instant rice, too.  I restricted myself to a maximum of 2 sweet treats per week and I exercised.  In one week my appetite became smaller.  In 10 days I'd lost 7lbs and in three months I'd lost 25lbs. and 2 or 3 sizes.  Well, it's going to happen again, only this time I'm not dropping the lbs and sizes, only to let them return.  It's going and it's going to stay gone, just like a relative who owes you money.  I'm off the soda and I've begun ingesting more veggies and by Saturday morning (because I'm really, really dreading this next part and I need a little time to gird my loins, so to speak) I will begin exercising.  In the past, I had great success with walking and weight training.  This time, I'm going to do T-Tapp.  If you go to www.ttapp.com you can read what it's all about - I'd explain it myself, only I wouldn't do it justice.  I flirted with this regime on and off since last August and saw very fast results.  I'm not going to say it's easy because it most certainly is not, but it's completely worth the blood, sweat, tears and initial screams of anguish.  Tuesday's little kerfuffle should not have happened.  Trying and buying clothes should be fun and a joy, not a source of misery.  I'm sick of not having any damn fun or anything cute to wear.  I'm sick of being invisible yet afraid to be seen.  I'm sick of never feeling or looking feminine.  I'm utterly through with the damn limitations and I'm over the damn whining.

So, sometime on Saturday, look for a progress report.