I went shopping on Friday and bought lots of cute new clothes. I was very happy. Shopping is a lot more fun when you have less excess weight on you!

Many people talk about how it’s better to judge your size based on the fit of your clothes rather than your weight. While weight is a very imperfect measure, clothing size has always been a problematic gauge for me. Because of my frame and the places where I hold and don’t hold weight, my pants size changes pretty slowly even if I’ve put on quite a bit of weight. Even at my heaviest, a lot of the clothes in my closet were size 6. Size 6 is a completely respectable size to be, so it was easy to rationalize away my weight gain. I’ve lost 13 pounds now, but I’m still defeinitely a size 6. If I wasn’t weighing myself, I probably wouldn’t have any idea how far I’d come.

That said, shopping at my current size is a LOT more fun! When I gain weight, I go up a size in some clothes, but many clothes just stop fitting me, period. No size fits me properly. I don’t carry extra weight well…it creates odd lumps and bumps that just don’t sit well on my frame. I used to go into the store and not be able to find anything that fit me and was flattering. Bigger sizes would look tentish or would hang oddly due to my small frame, and smaller sizes just wouldn’t fit at all. I ended up having a closet full of clothes cut in “curvy” or “loose fit” styles, and none of them looked very good on me. When I went into stores on Friday, everything that I tried on in a size 6 fit me. Dresses, skinny jeans, the works. Granted, some were flattering and some weren’t, but it was such a relief to be able to buy the things that look cute rather than the things that even remotely fit!

I’m up .2 pounds this week. It’s the first time I’ve actually gained since I started blogging, but I think my body is still reeling from everything I put it through before I turned my paper in on Wendnesday. I’m upping my exercise this week and hopefully I will bounce back.

My recalibration attempts are going pretty well. I’ve been eating very healthfully and moderately and I’ve been exercising much more than I normally do. Yesterday I went hiking with my husband and some friends for four hours! It was wonderful, although I’m pretty sore today. I will admit that I have been eating more dessert than I need to. I’ve been out to eat a few times in the last couple of days and my huband baked a batch of fresh chocolate chip cookies to take on the hike as part of our picnic lunch. In my defense, I’ve eaten moderate portions and I’ve only eaten one of the cookies, despite the fact that they are lying around the apartment looking tempting. I’ve enjoyed my treats, but I’m realizing that I just don’t need to get dessert every time I go out to eat just because other people are having it. Even if I eat moderately and have room in my caloric “budget,” I don’t feel my best when I put rich dessert into my body day after day. I’m actually really proud of myself that I’ve noticed that. I’ve become so much more in tune with my body, and I am really proud of that.