Skinny Me

I woke up this morning skinny.

I don't own a scale. The last time I weighed myself was in February at a health club in West Palm Beach. I was crushed when I stepped on the damn thing and discovered that all that running I had been doing hadn't yielded me a single pound loss. Over the course of the following six weeks, I tightened up here and there, but I was confident that I still held on to every single pound.

Last weekend I was lounging in a hot tub in the mountains with Kickball Guy and Katie. Kickball Guy announced that since he started running with me, he lost 10 pounds.

"He can take his pants off without unbuttoning them!" giggled Katie.

I made a face at him. "I've lost inches, but not pounds," I frowned.

Just that morning, I pulled my slim-fit Lacoste polo out of my closet. I hadn't worn it much last summer because the slim fit is really only for slim people. I pulled it on and it fit perfectly. Better than ever.

"I weigh myself every morning," explained Kickball Guy. "Most days I haven't lost anything or even gained a pound. But I got up one morning and discovered I lost 5 pounds overnight. You just have to give it time."

I frowned again. "I have no thyroid and subsequently a dysfunctional metabolism; I'll never lose a pound," I huffed.

I spend an inordinate amount of time standing in front of the bathroom mirror and pinching my sides. I can distinguish the good days from the bad days. When I stuck the toothbrush in my mouth this morning and resumed pinching my side, I immediately recognized the difference. I didn't really think anything of it though. I just declared it a good morning.

Then I got dressed. The big cosmic joke with women is that the breasts are the last place we gain weight and the first place we lose it. I put on my bra and realized I ran myself right out of a C cup. The bra was too big to the point that it slid down my rib cage. Once again, I just thought the elastic was busted and made a mental note to go shopping.

And then I put on the skinny jeans. Skinny jeans don't lie. The skinny jeans were two inches too big. I shoved my calves into my boots and noticed the space between the boots and the pants.

The skinny jeans were the anomaly. The only thing I couldn't justify. I looked down at my jeans. "We'll just wait until I get to work at look at the horrid floor-length mirror under fluorescent lighting, then we'll see what's what," I told them.

The jeans in the office bathroom looked different. I looked different.

I woke up this morning skinny. I'm declaring it my 5-pound day.