Let me start by saying, and this is mainly for the benefit of those who know me personally, that I am not going to complain about the size of my butt or my weight in this post because I know realistically that I really don’t have a problem in that area. No eye rolling or tongue clicking from you, and I don’t even want to hear the words “you have nothing to complain about” come out of your mouths! That being said, I ate a lot of chocolate Sweet 16 doughnuts and “rested” a lot after my miscarriage in July, and for someone who is normally quite active, the rest period was not good for me OR my wardrobe. When school started and I had to start thinking about dressing like a normal person again, I spent some time in my closet reacquainting myself with clothes I forgot I owned. I reorganized. I pulled some things for Goodwill that haven’t been worn since the Republicans seized control–oops, I mean, took office. Then I started trying things on, and that’s when the trouble began.
I invested some** of last year’s ABC bonus money* in new clothes for work–nice dress pants, shirts, even some skirts, and I wore those clothes happily all fall, winter and spring. But in August when I pulled those same clothes from their hangers I encountered a horrible truth: the pants no longer fit me. The shirts were fine, the skirts were fine, but the pants were…tighter than I typically wear pants. I could button them, but they were uncomfortable, and I felt as if the fabric in the rear area of the pants was stretched across my ass like a canvas waiting to be painted. I panicked, and here’s why: while the size issue bothers me a little, my world wouldn’t crumble if I had to go up one size–but my bank account would. I absolutely cannot afford to buy new pants, get pregnant, and then buy even MORE new pants. I had prepared myself for the maternity wardrobe expenditure, but I knew there could be no in between purchases. I was going to have to stop wearing pants completely, or I was going to have to find a way to wear the ones I have.
Enter Special K. You’ve seen the commercial: replace two meals a day with Special K and you’ll lose one jeans size in two weeks. This plan as it is written would not work for me because I can’t do milk early in the morning (ew) so that leaves me lunch and dinner, and no way am I eating cereal for dinner every night. Besides, I don’t really want to lose a whole size; my problem seems to be around a half of a size. So I put myself on the modified Special K plan: a Zone protein bar for breakfast (which is what I was eating for breakfast in the first place); Special K for lunch; a banana, some yogurt and a V8 spread out in between; and something reasonably healthy for dinner. I started this last Thursday, and as a sidenote let me give a shout out to Special K “Red Berries” and Special K “Fruit and Yogurt” cereals–delicious! Yesterday morning, one week later, I tried on a pair of the tight pants…and they aren’t tight anymore! They’re not as loose as they once were, but I would wear them in public now and not worry that my ass was going to pull some sort of Incredible Hulk stunt and start ripping open the seams of my pants, frightening small children and sending droves of people screaming, running for their lives.
So let’s hear it for the K.
*The state of North Carolina pays bonus money to schools for achievement. There are four or five achievement levels, ranging from “Expected Growth” to “Unnaturally High Steriod Induced Growth,” or something like that. I have no idea what “ABC” stands for, but standards and test scores are involved. And money.
**Who am I kidding here? The payoff for “Expected Growth” is, after taxes, a mere sum. I spent it all.
one small corner of the universe 