Tuesday, July 19, 2005

A whole new world of shopping awaits...

Oh dear. I've reawakened my long dormant love of shopping. Or maybe acquired one in the first place as I'm not so sure there was much to reawaken.

I never realised how many shops there are out there in skinny person world. I've spent my life just walking past them, never bothering to venture in. Limiting myself to the two or three shops where I could find a generously cut size 20 (and *ahem* at my highest "slightly" larger sizes that I didn't admit to, even to myself. No matter what I was wearing I would insist that I was a 20. Which isn't what the labels said...). Not daring to consider the word "fashion", just looking for something that fits. No wonder I wasn't interested and didn't understand why other people loved shopping. I just didn't know the riches that were available to them. Well, now I do!

And the sales! Can we talk about the sales, please? Why could I never find anything so cheap yet gorgeous before? It's mid-July, I can get months of wear out of these summer clothes (well, if they still fit me for months that is), and they're selling £35 clothes for £10.50. Let me in there! I'm doing very well at picking up a bargain or two recently, which makes me feel far better about the fact that I hopefully won't be able to wear them for long.

So today I did something I've been dreaming of for a while. I ventured into a shop where they don't sell anything above a size 16. Real skinny-person territory. This was a very distant dream not so long ago. Yet today I came out with a skirt and a top. And I even left another skirt in the shop, not wanting to be too extravagant. OK, so the skirt could do with being a teensy bit looser, but it didn't look half bad. I went in there in my size 20 suit (which I haven't worn for a while. If I had done I might have realised before I put it on this morning at the gym that it makes me look like a child dressing up in her mother's clothes, it's so baggy in places) looking OK, but nothing special. Half the battle was believing that it was worth trying them on. I picked them up, looked at them and nearly turned back. But I took a deep breath, I tried on the clothes, and I looked amazing. (I promise this is nothing to do with sucking my stomach in while taking that deep breath…) The person I saw in the mirror wasn't the person I've been all my life, it was someone thinner, more confident, and many many times hotter. I didn't expect to see that. Because I still wear my old clothes I sometimes don't realise how much better something that fits properly can look. Wow. A little tight in places, but still, wow.

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One thing I've noticed recently is that people no longer ask if I've lost weight. They tell me that I have, they ask how much, and they ask how. I love it! At first I think people are a bit unsure and don't want to ask if you've lost weight in case you haven't, in case they've got it wrong. So it might take them a while to let on that they've noticed when actually they've suspected something for a while. Now it's obviously so clear from looking at me that I have I'm feeling so good about myself.

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The good thing about my bit of lunchtime retail therapy is that it's helped to fight a couple of demons that have been building up for a while. Even though I said I'm happy at this weight over the weekend, for some reason I've got really worked up about fluctuations recently and I'm getting paranoid that I'm about to hit a plateau. And then the demons really come out.

The basic theme of their arguments is that I can't hope to lose any more than I have done, and I'll be lucky to keep it off. That I'm destined to be fat forever. And they tell me that I only said I'm happy at this weight because I know that their arguments are true. And they keep on convincing me that my loss is now going to grind to an absolute halt and never re-start. Telling myself that maybe I wouldn't be that bothered, that I've lost the most important weight now, that anything else is a bonus doesn't work, it plays right into their hands. Even though I don't want to be bothered or obsessed they're still there, and I can't get rid of them.

But a bit of shopping shows me that I can do this, that I have done this, all by myself, for myself, and that there's no reason why I can't carry on with it. And if it keeps me believing in myself and keeping the demons at bay, I think that's £21 well spent.

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Oh, and this morning I woke up at 4.58. So much for my total blackout, lots of sleep plan.

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