Making public my ambition to have an email-free week of vacation worked so well, I thought I’d try it with my weight-loss plan. If I tell you my goal and promise to report if I met it, maybe I’ll stick to it, just as I did with my email moratorium.
Here it is: I want to drop at least five pounds — ten would be even better — by the time I need to wear long pants this fall. I am blessed with a job to which I can wear shorts, weather permitting. That’s usually May-October. So, I need to shed the weight by the end of September, give or take.
Why this long pants angle? Well, this weight loss has very little to do with actually being “overweight”. (I’m really not). It’s got almost nothing to do with vanity. (I am a little vain, just like you!) It has mostly to do with the fact that I’m cheap, and I hate to shop. I don’t want to buy new pants. But if I don’t shrink my 40-year-old gut, I won’t fit in my long pants, which means trips to the store to replace a perfectly good, cool-weather wardrobe. I’m wincing in pain at the thought. (My shorts are roomier, so no trouble fitting into them this summer.)
I know I can achieve this goal because I’ve been 15 pounds lighter at the same height (though at a much younger age), and I’m only trying to drop 1/3 to 2/3 of that amount. Totally doable, right? And yet, I’ve been trying to get back to my ideal pants-fitting weight for several years as the pounds have slowly accumulated. I’ve been failing.
Think I’ll make my goal this time? Place your bets in the comments. Care to make it interesting? By what date will I be five pounds lighter? What about ten?
(I now await Aaron’s suggestion of Weight Watchers. … Maybe. But not yet. I’ll try this first. Remember, I’m cheap.)
