Now, 10% off!

The lingering effects of the cold are wearing away slowly, and I returned to the gym for the first time in almost two weeks. There I confirmed what I learned late last week: That I'd reached my weight loss goal for the summer: 10% of my body weight, or, at that point, 19.2 pounds.

Over the weekend, we did a little traveling (and had a wonderful visit with friends), and along the way hit an outlet mall with a playground for the kids to run around a bit. I ducked into the J. Crew outlet, which was having a sale, to try on some jeans, since 19 pounds of weight loss does not a good jeans fit make.

So I pulled a few pairs in a few cuts and a few sizes off the shelf, and discovered, gleefully, that I've dropped from a 35 waist to a 32 waist. This makes me happy in part for the obvious reasons, but also because I am a clothes horse, and the opportunity to purge clothes from my closet and replace with newer trimmer ones is really powerful.

This is precisely what we did last night. Now, I didn't get rid of every single piece of clothing, and nothing that was simply too big in the waist--those got folded up nicely and stored away for the someday that I may need a larger pair of pants. And while I was at it, I got rid of some old dress shirts that were the worse for wear, and some sweaters that looked like sack dresses these days.

Of course, what this means is that back-to-school shopping will need to commence in the coming weeks, and I've got a nice juicy list to pursue when I go. All of my cultural-studies misgivings aside, the impulse to shop for clothes that won't make me depressed about my body is really, really potent, and I'm itching to indulge that impulse.