Jenny Craig Day 27 - Spanx Discomfort and Body Image

Today's Jenny Craig Tips:

* If you can go almost 30 days without ribs and cupcakes, you CAN do anything!

* The key to conquering half your body woes may be as simple as finding booty-licious pants.

And now, here are the details of my 27th day on the Jenny Craig diet plan...

What I Weighed Today: 188 lbs. (8am)

I tried on some clothes today.  It is clear that my shape is changing up top, I can easily slip into most Medium blouses and depending upon stretch factor some small sizes.  However, my ass just seems to be a non-negotiable fixture that is causing all kinds of fit issues!! First of all, let me go back to the tops and clarify that although I can fit these blouses and tops and they close comfortably.  They only look nice from about five inches below my bra and up.  Below that there is a whole Bloomin’ Onion situation going on that makes small children cry and hide their faces in their mother’s skirts.  If I put on Spanx with everything it pulls it all in and stabilizes the jiggle and I look damn fine.  But after about half a day in Spanx I start mowing people down in my car and contemplating suicide bombings. Seriously, the Spanx discomfort starts around 1 p.m. and I can’t concentrate on anything once my sausage casing starts to pinch.  And you can’t take them off because at that point everyone has seen you looking cute in your outfit and complimented you on it.  If I take the Spanx off, I can just imagine the whispers and conversations trying to figure out how I managed to eat a Buick for lunch.  So as a compromise, I am still buying Large tops and blouses for the most part.  Luckily, I know how to sew and I take them in around the bust and waist.  The problem with that is that it limits my choices because some items are just not meant to be taken in around one area but left alone in another.  You get weird puckering and floppy bits that make the garment look cheap.  *Heavy Sigh* That whole last part kinda sounded like I was talking about my actual body.  It has weird puckering and floppy bits that make it look cheap, too.

If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model.  Kate Moss?  Well, she would have been the paintbrush.  —Dawn French

Moving downward, let’s talk pant fittings.  I have a small waist, a big shelf at the top of my ass, a flat area where my ass meets my thighs, huge thighs and huge legs and cankles.  That was hard to put in writing, but it’s true so there you have it.  If pants fit in the waist, they are too tight in the legs.  If they fit in the thighs, there is enough room in the waist to carry cargo with me.  My best compromise has been to buy pants that are comfortable in the legs but a little snug an then take the waist in.  The issue again with this is that depending how big the waist is, it is very labor intensive to take the waist in and the garment can still wind up looking really poorly made.  The other issue is that because I really don’t have the time to be detailed about my tailoring, I wind up having to hide the waist of my skirts and pants because they look like sh*t. The other issue I have always had, but is even worse right now, is finding a pair of jeans to fit my shelf booty.  All of the jeans I try on now look like I have half deflated balloons in my pants.  Right at the tops of my thighs there is all this room for about 4 inches, then my ass just sort of blooms and the jeans hug that area perfectly.  This all might be okay except for the fact that, as you will recall, my thighs are big so in the area just under the baggy-ass part the jeans fit tight again.  So what you have is just this empty, floofy area between the top half of my ass and my thighs, where it is obvious there should be …..well….MORE ASS! 

What I Ate Today:
Breakfast:  Jenny Craig Cranberry Almond Cereal, 3 oz. String Cheese, 2 cups Coffee w/4 tablespoons sugar-free Hazelnut creamer
Snack 1:  Jenny Cookies & Cream Anytime Bar
Lunch:  Jenny Craig Turkey Burger, Steamed Mixed Veggies w/Season-All Salt
Snack:  Jenny Craig Bruschetta Veggie Chips 
Dinner:  Jenny Craig Fish & Chips, Steamed Mixed Veggies w/I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter Spray
Snack:  Apple, Non-Fat Yogurt

EXERCISE:
None

I'm tired, send one of them home.
 —Mae West, when told there were 10 men waiting to meet her in her dressing room

Don’t get me wrong folks.  I look better than I have in a while. I am shopping in regular stores for the most part, although I have dipped into Lane Bryant a few times.  I can still fit most of their 14’s with a little tailoring.  But I’m thankful for the ability to not be completely relegated to large size clothing stores anymore.  It’s just that this shopping trip was a little disappointing.  Turns out that real life is not like on these reality shows where the person comes down the stairs in a new perfectly fitted outfit, a new haircut and some makeup and the audience gasps!  Real life is standing in a dressing room with 18 pairs of jeans and coming to the realization that none of them will make you look like Britney Spears.  Well...maybe Britney when she went nuts and shaved her head.  But definitely NOT the Britney before Kevin Federline or after her comeback.

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