When did shopping become depressing?!

It feels like I’ve been spinning my wheels without actually getting anywhere recently. While I haven’t been going hard-out with either diet or exercise, I’ve been good with both. Hitting the gym for about an hour 3 times a week. Walking about 6-7 km daily on top of that. Having overall healthy foods. Doing WAY better than I was before I started blogging in terms of doing things to generally improve my health… but I feel like the last 3 months haven’t really done anything. And it’s super depressing.

Yesterday, I met up with one of my friends to go to DressSmart, an outlet mall about 20 minutes from my place. I was super excited because every other time I had been it was with Andrew and we sort of flew through the mall – as you do when shopping with a guy – picking up work shirts or socks or something for him and rarely stopping to look around, let alone try on, stuff for me. Needless to say, the idea of going with another girl and actually trying all sorts of things on without worrying about boring my bf to death was something to look forward to.

And I was having a lovely time… right up until we went into a lingerie shop. They had great bras for $15 and a whole assortment of cute little pj pants, shorts, dressing gowns, etc etc. We spent a little while wandering the store and picking out a handful of things to each try on. I went into the change room and excitedly tried on a pair of shorts.

They made me look like a sausage!
And, to add insult to injury, a botton popped off when I was about to take them off. sigh.

Not one to just completely give up after one pair of shorts, I tried on the pj pants. Then the dressing gown. Then a cute little pull-over sweater. And a couple bras. Each and every single one of them made me feel like a bloated little sausage girl trying to stuff myself into my younger sister’s clothes.

ARGH!!!!!

Completely defeated, I left each of the not-so-adorable-anymore pieces on their hangers in the dressing room and got out of there. When my friend asked me if I liked anything, I told her each and every single piece made me want to jump on a treadmill and run 10 miles. She just looked at me and blurted out “Me too!” We both kinda laughed and decided to move on to the shoe stores. (Where we each found at least one pair we adored and bought, btw).

It was weird. I’ve been feeling like I’m in a rut and not really progressing at all for a few weeks now, but I was never really down on myself because of it. I am making good choices – better choices than I used to make – and I’m putting some conscious effort into this. I’m doing well even if I’m not seeing as many changes as I would like. But that one store struck a complete blow to my self confidence. And even later that day I started looking at myself, in my clothes that I’d liked that morning, and I saw myself as bigger. Bloated. Fluffy. Cuddly. NOT FIT.

And it sucked.

When I takled to Andrew last night about it, before falling asleep, he looked me in the eye and said, very seriously, “You know you aren’t fat, right?” And I said “I know…” but didn’t really feel it. I mean, I don’t know. I’m not fat. Logically, I know that. But when I try on a size large pant and I have to tense my abs to make it feel comfortable around my waist, that’s a huge ego blow. When you try a dozen things and put every single one back on the rack because they each make you look and feel frumpy and unfit, you start to think it’s not the clothes – it’s you.

 

Anyway… sorry for the little rant. I must be tired. Or hormonal. Or stressed. Or all of the above.

Time for a couple solid gym sessions, some fresh spinach and berry smoothies and maybe a massage. I get like this every now and then (don’t we all?). At least this time I’m hoping it’ll just motivate me and push me out of the slump instead of the typical “well, I give up!” response of yesteryear.