Do it Anyway
Back when I was super fit, I was a Lululemon brand ambassador.
This essentially meant that I got awesome new athletic clothes to wear to work and I told everybody in my classes how awesome my new clothes were. It was a win/ win situation in my opinion because they really were amazing clothes. You gotta remember, back in the day, yoga gear was leotards and sweatpants. Getting handed some Luon and a fashionable cut was friggin’ awesome. The fit was great and the function was unparalleled.
I loved Lululemon so much that when I stopped teaching full time, I took a job in the store selling product I really did believe in. I still got the gear at a good price, and I got to hang out with athletes and yogis all day. I was a master of the Pant Wall and was often called back to Fits for my “honest” opinion. Seriously not kidding. I will tell you if your ass looks fat in those pants regardless of how much the sale adds to the kitty. A lot of guests appreciate that and end up buying more because they know it isn’t just about the sale. It was a good gig.
But then this thing started to happen. I call it “this thing” when what I should say is “this ass”. After many joyful years, I had to give up CrossFit for physical reasons, and I had stopped teaching 10-15 hours of yoga weekly. I was down to semi-daily walks and yoga maybe four times a week. The creep began, slowly, ever so slowly and then….BAM! It hit a brick wall. I was suddenly the fat chick in the dressing room, and, oh yes, indeed, those pants made my ass look fat.
Like, super fat.
I don’t even want to talk about the bra thing. I just can’t.
Anyway. There is something really brutal about living and working with athletes when you can’t be athletic and you are the big girl in the room. I’m confident many people have had this experience far longer than I have, but it was really profound for me. Nobody—not a single one—judged, criticised or remarked about my weight. It wasn’t even a fly in the room, despite being the elephant in my pants. What I slowly came to realize is that food and weight is an issue for everybody. These guys talked and worried about it all the time.
In the athletic world the language is about “performance” and “fueling”. In the weight world it is about “healthy” and “getting fit”. But the message is still the same. You must, under any and all circumstances, pay attention to every single thing that goes into your mouth. You must know how much it weighs and how it breaks down in the ratios of protein, fat and carbs. And if you are really in control of your body, you will hit extremely precise numbers every single day. Even if it means eating 1/3 tablespoon of butter at the end of the day to hit your fats. Or not eating anything white ever so that you don’t blow your carbs. Or measuring your water ounces with little rubber bands tied around your cup. The level of precision and obsession is astounding.
And if you have never been around it, you don’t want to.
Not because of the neurotic nature of it, but rather because of the underlying OCD and potential self-flagellation. Maybe I am the only one who found it a simply vicious way to live. Maybe I am the only one who laid in bed at 4:00 in the morning calculating precisely how much I was supposed to loathe myself for failing to limit the carbs that I simply could not resist. Perhaps I was the only one developing a harmful disease of mind that had me starving for days on end simply because I could not figure out how to feed myself with what was available to me because it did not fit into the form I was supposed to fill out. I can’t even begin to tell you how awful that feeling is. It’s paralyzing.
And then I remember the days way back when, when I would eat whatever the fuck I wanted. And I ate well. I ate healthy. I didn’t even think about the fucking math and wore the damn stretch pants anyway. I was loved; I am loved. I was beautiful; I am beautiful. I was worthy; I am worthy. And what I put in my mouth was not a measure of any of that.
So there. Yes, Felicia, those pants make your ass look fat. Are they comfortable? Buy them anyway. And then sit around and eat some damn cake. Or some gluten free black bean brownies. It doesn’t matter to me, and it shouldn’t matter to you.