Finally… the black jeans are an official fit. My weight has been updated to a total loss of 63 pounds.

I’d have to go back through my posts, but I want to say I’ve been working on these goal pants since November. Crap — four months, at least! As I’ve said before, I will never pick that big of a size difference again when choosing goal pants.  Four months was entirely too long. Ideally, I’d like to go two months or so between the clothing I choose.

The shirt? It fits everywhere except the upper arms. They’re tight. Not tight enough to be uncomfortable, since the shirt has a little stretch in it, but tight enough that I don’t think it would look good to someone else.

Now, back to those pants. I admit I’ve gone through quite the head game with these jeans, including today. I think in part it’s because it took so long to call them a fit that I was hesitant to do it. Even this morning, I was putting off saying that they were at a point where they were okay to wear. I think part of it was that they were still a little too tight in the crotch/upper thigh area when I last weighed, which was only three pounds ago, so why would they really fit any better now?

I decided that I’d put them on this afternoon, after I finished exercising, and wear them for a while to see if they’d loosen up, and they did. They’re jeans, after all, and they have a small bit of stretch in them. I went grocery shopping in them, and my mother even gave them her seal of approval; trust me, my mother is opinionated about clothes!

So, I’m sitting at 63 pounds down, now, and these jeans are size 22 — on the small side of 22. I have other jeans and shorts in size 22 that I’ve been comfortably wearing for a while, now.  I’m pretty sure I know what jeans will be next, and they are a size 20 petite.

While we’re on the subject of clothing, I did something cathartic: I took all clothes that are currently too large for me and bagged them up. They’re being donated tomorrow.  It’s an entire leaf size garbage bag full.  It felt really good to say goodbye to size 26 and 3X. Someone who needs them will have them, now, and I do consider that a big deal, because plus-size clothes are expensive.  They’re going to Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

In addition, I bagged up four other bags of clothing that is too small, but I don’t like the clothes. They are leftovers from my last big weight loss, and my strategy is different, now. Then, I was focused on a goal, and refused to buy clothes unless they were second-hand or off the clearance rack, because I considered my interim weights to be temporary and not worth spending much money on.  In retrospect, I was punishing myself.  So, I went through the clothes I’d kept that were too small, and opted to donate the ones that I don’t like.  That was four more garbage bags worth.  Why keep things that I didn’t like, or are woefully out of style?

This time around, while I am keeping spending on clothes at a minimum, I’m viewing things differently. The clothes that I have which are too small are ones which I really liked and are still in style. I’m only buying more clothes if I have necessities (think bras, underwear!), if there’s a problem with having enough of a certain kind of clothes for a season (like shorts in the right size), or I just find a piece of clothing I really like.  Everything I have, now, is something I like. This is part of accepting who I am right now, at this given moment.

I’m not taking my eyes off the goal; but I’m also not punishing myself for not being there, yet.  I want to feel good about myself at every stage, and this plan is working well.