Shallow but nice

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This may seem shallow to some. And they might be right. But something happened to me recently that reminded me of how incredibly much easier and how incredibly much more fun it is to shop when you’re a size 2/4 rather than 14/16. That isn’t why I changed my lifestyle, but I have to admit, it’s a very enjoyable “side effect”.

My husband recently bought three shirts online from Express. One was a classic fit, which just looked too baggy on him. Since I drive by an Express every day, I offered to exchange it in-store for an extra slim fit.

While I was looking around the store for the men’s shirts, a skirt caught my eye. I like simple geometric designs a lot. I like nice clean lines. And what caught my eye was a sideways striped jersey skirt in tan, black, white, and blue. The skirt in the pictures to the sides here.

I think most people will immediately recognize that a skin-tight, sideways striped skirt is a does-my-butt-look-fat nightmare. But it turns out, if you’re a size 2/4, you can wear it anyway. I saw the skirt, liked it, tried it on, liked what I saw, and walked out of the store with it. And that was it. Now, that’s my idea of fun shopping! See, try, like, buy, done. (I like to shop like a man, if you couldn’t tell.)

I used to spend more time and energy than I even realized at the time worrying about “flattering” clothes, even though it seems (based on some blogs I’ve seen) that I have very good body self-esteem. Now I never worry about looking “fat”, because I know I’m not at all fat. Anyone trying to say so is just trying to get under my skin and is hoping my self-esteem hangs completely on being beautiful. (I always knew being smart gets you a lot further than being pretty, if you can’t be both.)

I enjoy the fitness more than the slimness and toning day-to-day, for sure. (I’d start listing all the little things about my fitness that make me smile often, but then this post would be ridiculously long.) But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care at all about plain looking better. I have so many more clothing choices in practice now, simply because I’m not restricted to items that hide bulges and try to direct the eye a particular way.

I used to think I was genetically curvy in a way that was unique and made it difficult for me to wear clothes cut for “regular” women, who weren’t as curvy as me – as in, had a smaller hip-to-waist ratio. I’d just never measured my hip-to-waist ratio – and it turns out that just wasn’t true about the genetics. The fit difficulties were just a result of excess fat accumulation patterns, not my figure. Same genes, completely different fit and shopping experiences – less fat. While it may be true that I have a curvy body type, it is not some statistical outlier. I just hadn’t had the hands-on experience to know the difference.

This is the perfect fab skirt. It’s short (i. e. cool under a bunny suit), and because it’s tight, there is no fabric to bunch up. (I wear skirts to work a lot, so that I don’t get so hot when I have to go in the fab.) Thanks to P90X coupled with a longstanding Anusara yoga practice, I can wear this skirt and put on my bunny suit balancing on one leg.

You know what they say, it’s the small things that make a difference – and wearing this skirt and being able to put on (and take off) my bunny suit on one leg both make me smile every time.