I got some new clothes over the weekend. Every time I put on one of my dress shirts I felt bad about myself because the buttons were bulging. I’d look at myself in the mirror and feel bad. I’d carefully adjust my computer to make sure that anyone I was on a call with couldn’t tell. This negative feeling about myself was taking up valuable brain space and it was stupid. So I bought some new shirts.
I prided myself on losing a lot of weight a few years ago, and bought some new shirts at the time because my old ones were too big, but then I put on a bit of that weight. Not a lot. My new clothes still fit. But then came COVID and now those new old shirts don’t fit.
I’m an emotional eater and I know it. Stress can be a big trigger for this, and let’s face it, we’ve all been under a lot more stress for a variety of reasons. I also know, that like many people who are emotional eaters, I gain weight and I feel bad about myself, so I eat. I don’t even have to step on a scale to see the effect. My clothes don’t fit.
I decided that I need to stop cramming myself into those old new clothes because the way I look in them makes me feel bad about myself, thus I went shopping. I got some colourful shirts in bright colours and they fit. In the dressing room I smiled at myself in the mirror because I look good in those new new shirts.
While it felt good to fit into clothes that were a lot smaller than I had been wearing when I lost the weight a few years ago, it feels better to buy new clothes that fit and I look good in, but are a bigger size than to continue to squeeze myself into shirts that clearly don’t fit me, make me look and feel unattractive, and I really don’t want to wear even though they’re a smaller size.
I bought new clothes to feel better and break and old pattern, and frankly, I look pretty damn good in them.
Featured image courtesy of Thierry Caro under a CC-BY-SA license.
