Skinny Jeans

This morning I tried on my pre-preggie Diesel skinny jeans (second attempt post baby, first one was on NYE) and guess what? They didn’t fit. So why am I telling you this rather than wait until I can gleefully exclaim over how I’ve managed to wedge myself back into them? Because when I got those jeans up and the button was still a good 2 inches away from success you know what happened? I didn’t freak out. And if you know me even a little bit, you’ll know that’s saying something. I have been known to, ahem, well, obsess. Just a little bit. About getting back in shape.

But something quite amazing has happened this past week. It took place within just a day or so of my deciding that a little self-acceptance was in order. I’m talking about beating myself up to look a certain way within a certain timeframe. I’ve somehow just stopped caring. I don’t mean that I’ve given up – part of me still wants to be back to a size 8 yesterday. But I’m not panicking anymore. A week ago the jean incident would have had me nearly in tears, and this morning I just shrugged it off. Same thing happened an hour ago when I jumped on the scales and they were still much within the same range they’ve been for weeks.

“Oh well”, I thought. “It’ll work out eventually”.

Have you ever noticed how much of a relief it can to be to consciously let go of something you were holding over yourself? I think of it as being like walking around with a 10kg pack on your pack for weeks on end, becoming so used to it that you don’t even realize it’s there anymore – until someone takes it away. And you notice how light you feel. How much happier. And – most importantly, perhaps – how you can suddenly handle or focus on other things, things that should quite probably have been a higher priority in the first place. Like spending extra time with your baby rather than worrying about squeezing in an extra workout. Like being totally present in a conversation and caring about other people’s lives rather than running body fat figures in your mind.

And the skinny jeans? They’ll still be waiting for me when I get there. Which I will, for sure. You can count on it. But when I do I hope to have learnt a whole lot more about self-belief, about putting first things first, and about living in the present. Life is, after all, a journey. We’d be crazy not to enjoy on the ride as well as the end destination.

Body plus baby? Easy!*

Kat

*(We hope)

Are you currently on your own ‘body after bump’ journey? I’d love to hear from you. One of my main reasons for starting this blog (aside from keeping myself accountable) was to form a community of like-minded women. Women who refuse to become a dowdy mother figure and instead choose to embrace their new role with the exceptional health and energy that comes from being in control of their body from the inside out. If this is you then make sure you drop me a line in the comments section below!

Want to leave a comment? If you’re reading from RSS or email you’ll have to enter the blog to do this. You can do that by clicking on the title of this piece. ‘Post a comment’ is at the article end, right under the ’share this’ and ‘related posts’ options.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to this feed, what are you waiting for? Do it now. You can choose either email at the top right of this page, or by RSS in the URL bar.

If you enjoyed this article please forward to your friends and tweet it. Thank-you!

No related posts.