Good ways – Bad ways

I’ve been working on losing weight. I don’t want to get on the crash diet bandwagon, since I know it’ll just lead to a subsequent ballooning, so it’s been a slow, gradual process. This can be discouraging sometimes. You see yourself every day, so you don’t notice any progress. Over the weekend we had dinner with my in-laws, and my sis-in-law commented that I’d lost weight since last she’d seen me.

I’ve noticed some other things myself, some good, some bad. On the good side are the generic “physical health” benefits. I don’t get as winded on stairs. At work, I can toss around rolls of 42″ gloss paper with ease. And I can comfortably wear some of the previously too-tight pants which have been hanging out in my closet.

And that’s led into one of the not so good things. After a weekend of knocking around in scruffy old pants, I forgot that when I wear my newer, nicer pants, it’s vital that I also wear a belt.

I didn’t notice it first thing this morning, oh no. Freshly washed jeans tend to be a little snug, at least until the fabric warms up and relaxes. For me, this happened as I was walking down one of the longest hallways in my whole workplace. And it’s really tough figure out a casual way to keep your pants from heading south. I wound up casually hooking my thumb in the top of my pocket and sauntering in the direction of the nearest men’s room to undertake a quick program of waistline hefting and shirt tucking.

All day long, it’s been the battle of the beltless. Standing up and sitting down have become little contests between me and the force of gravity. It’s really kind of embarrassing. Because you know your first reaction on seeing someone in my kind of situation isn’t going to be, “Hey, he’s lost weight!” It’ll be something along the lines of “Huh. Burgundy underwear. Is that Fruit of the Loom or Haynes?”