Survival Mode Put Us Back to Zero
A lot of you came here many moons ago when I left Sparkpeople. I loved the community of that place and the support I got there. It was at the height of us being on our game. That motivation you have in the beginning when you're consistently rewarded with weight loss, smaller clothes, compliments to keep your motivation high and you somehow begin to step out of being invisible to the public to people smiling at you, opening doors or striking up conversation. You start to feel human. You don't have to worry about going to restaurants or 'fitting' somewhere. You can go to a wedding and see those God awful thin folding chairs and while you still don't like them, you're not concerned. Many of your worries that fit people never had to think of, have faded away. We started for the long haul in our 30's and that's when we had the most success, losing 226 and 190 lbs respectively. When we went on vacation, as long as we came back and got rig...
For some reason the first thing that came to mind for me on this was when I was a kid and I was in a very awkward size phase. I needed taller pants for my age so I had to get like adult sized pants but then regular sized shirts. My Mom had the hardest time finding pants to fit me that also were in line with the school uniform. I think we could only buy pants in JC Penny's "husky" section for like 2 or 3 years. Anyway, a couple months into the school year I would inevitably have holes starting to form between the thighs and since it was already so hard to find pants we had to resort to patching them up like all the time. I am amazed that she did a good enough job to keep it so that nobody ever noticed enough to make fun of me for it. Some pants would have 2 or 3 patches of different colors so you can imagine this would be embarassing. Honestly the patches held up way better than the regular material -especially those hateful corduroy pants that I loathe to this day! Thankfully we eventually got a big and tall store in town and I never had a problem finding clothes to fit my weird growth spurts after that.
ReplyDeleteAlways shopping sales. I make more money by myself than my parents made together when I was growing up, and we always looked for the best bargains/sales when buying anything. Today, I still 99% of the time will not pay full price for something, and will only buy it if it's marked down/on sale. My significant other thinks I am cheap, but it's a habit I have had since I was a child.
ReplyDeleteI was raised by a child of the depression (Dad born 1935 to dirt poor parents on a homestead with no running water or electricity) so even though we just squeaked into the middle class when I was growing up I still adopted all those frugal habits. Most of my clothes are from the thrift store, shop sales, get every little bit out of peanut butter jars, tubes of sunscreen, shampoo bottles, etc. I would grow more of my own food if I could but I'm outnumbered by squirrels and they eat everything!
ReplyDeleteI was raised with "waste not, want not, there are starving kids in Africa", and even "God gave us that food, to waste it is a sin." (My parents both grew up poor, so they were frugal, I had half a hamburger at McDonalds once, when I was in third grade. Sometimes candy bars were on sale for 13 for a dollar at Kmart, it was like Christmas, seven of us kids, choosing a WHOLE candy bar.) I also scrape every bit, put water in the dishwashing liquid bottles and swirl around, a few extra ounces!
ReplyDeleteI too put a bit of water in my shampoo bottle, face wash, shower gel, etc. to get out every drop. I'll even do that with spaghetti sauces and canned soup. I scrape out every little bit out of the jar of moisturizer, sunscreen, peanut butter. I have to think hard before buying a snack or eating fast food. I'll always first look to see what the special is in a restaurant, even if it isn't what I want but it is cheaper. I bring in my own snacks to the movie theater. My partner thinks I'm strange and very cheap.
ReplyDeleteI'm a ziploc bag (generic brand) re-user. If I've stored lettuce or something that isn't super-oily I'll wash that bag out and hang it to dry. Sometimes I'll have these bags all over the kitchen hanging on the spoon rack, utensil holder, etc. For the cube boxes of kleenex/tissues I cut out the tops where the openings are when the box is empty and have a stack of those to use as mats for picture frames because I'm too cheap to buy mats that cost more than the frames. Movie theaters always had me bringing my own candy, as well as any sporting event. When they started checking bags at hockey games, I'd put bottles of water down the sleeves of my bulky coat so get through the line. And we live off of coupons. I clip them every Sunday from the paper and any grocery store that has "perk" coupons I'm constantly using those. My husband is now to the point where he's excited to tell me when he finds a good deal on something because I've told him never pay full price for a gift for me because there's ALWAYS a coupon or a sale somewhere. LOL
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