For months, my jeans have been shrinking. I am now at the point where I air-dry all my clothes and they are still shrinking. I have this internal debate each time I do laundry like…”I’ve only worn these jeans three times…I have them perfectly stretched out…If I wash them, they will shrink and I will have to start the process all over again.” Any one else or is it just me? My heart and self-esteem came to a screeching halt this weekend when a customer posted a selfie of us together and I didn’t angle the camera. My stomach was falling over my jeans and you could see the belly-button hole through my black tank top!

WTF? When did this happen? I NEVER weigh myself, but I did today. People- I am 190 pounds. In one year I have put on 30 pounds. In a year! So what did I immediately do? I started making my denial excuses. I’m an ninja-level expert at excuse making.  “I’ve been busy”, “I have two jobs”, “my kid is in sports, I don’t have time to work out.” You name it, but here I am, writing and balancing my laptop on my belly.

So this is the reality. I fucking hate working out. I hate dieting and I absolutely hate kale. But today is Monday and we know this is the only acceptable day to start a work out routine. I almost didn’t go. I nearly died when I tried to put my yoga pants on.  First, I had to find my one pair of yoga pants- turns out, I filed them away with my bathing suit in the “I’m never going to wear this shit” drawer. So I am standing in my bathroom, surrounded by tile and stuck a foot in the leg. Spanx tights are easier to get on than these torture devices. Once I got to the knee, I was already sweating. I put the other leg in and then I was stuck. The pants were so tight, they were pulling my knees together. Nevertheless, I persisted. I started inching the pants up my thighs, and it physically hurt. There were deep creases where the pants just gave up fighting and found a comfy roll to settle in. I tried to smooth them out, but it was like separating turkey skin from the bird at Thanksgiving, it was a damn chore. Then I lost my balance and fell over. I screamed out at Joe “I can’t get these fucking pants on! I’m not going!” 190 pounds…190 pounds…I can’t be 190 pounds! So, I sat on the tile and peeled those fuckers off. Also, I now have a bruise on my hip- so yeah…I’m feeling sexy. I wore pajama pants to the gym.

So, I get there and I am trying to live the Instagram meme life. There are beautiful women, wearing beautiful clothes with perfect hair and I am trying not to compare myself. This is my journey, the first step of my adventure, my self-care time, and all that other pale-pink, scripty-font bullshit.

I get up on the elliptical and turn it on to level 1. I put my weight and height in and my legs started burning right away. Then that asshole of a machine started a scrolling message that read “This is the 7-minute warm up before your workout”. WTF? I angrily turned the damn machine off and went full manual mode. Fuck you elliptical and your condensing tone. I continued until I had beads of sweat running down my boobs and back and finally got off. Holy shit…my legs almost collapsed. I went downstairs and found Joe and told him I was ready to leave, and he said, “We’ve only been here 25 minutes.”

The point of this post is to merely say…I am Sore AF.  I will be at Team Fitness in Lake Stevens, WA tomorrow at 6:30pm if any of you want to join me. I was super bored tonight- and it might be fun to do this together. I also really want a bowl of Captain Crunch- but apparently this glass of water will fill me right up and stop my craving.