P90X and Blue Jeans

Most of you may know already that my husband and I are now doing the P90X workout. I initiated this move for a couple of reasons. For one, from the first time I ever watched their infomercial I was hooked. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched it, but witnessing the before-and-after of everyday shmucks like myself absolutely had me riveted. If Betsy from South Carolina, who has a gut larger than mine and five kids, can look like that after 90 days of working out, sign me up. Like yesterday. Honestly, if you have a business you should investigate what company is in charge of marketing for P90X and hire them. They have some seriously phenomenal marketing. But I digress.

Another thing that prompted me to start the workout program was my blue jeans. As every woman knows (and maybe some men here), in the closets of females everywhere there live three distinctly separate piles of jeans: the now jeans, the skinny jeans, and the fat girl jeans.

Now before you get all huffy and start ranting about how "every woman is beautiful regardless of size," let me preface that I totally agree with you. That said, I don’t care if you are a size 2 or 20, every woman has a similar system in their closet. We have the jeans we wear everyday. Our now clothes. The size we currently are and maybe have been for quite some time. We also have our skinny jeans. These jeans remind us of a time when we were smaller or weighed less than we do now and may have come at some expense to our bodies. After having the stomach flu for a week and losing 10 pounds. After being on the South Beach diet that summer before your high school reunion. The year your life was so stressful you could only eat one bowl of Rice Krispies a day. When you were two month pregnant and wretched every 15 minutes. At our personal thinnest, we go out, purchase new clothes, and especially buy a new pair of jeans. You’ve never looked or felt better than poured into your brand spankin' new skinny girl jeans.

We all know how the story unfolds. Time happens. You overcome the stomach flu. Summer ends, the holidays hit, and your skinny girl jeans now prevent you from sitting down. Back to the department store to purchase a larger size pair of denim pants which you are now more comfortable in. Sure, you may be wearing one pant size bigger than before, but it’s only one size see, and it’ll be easy to get back into your skinny girl jeans with just the tiniest bit of effort. I’ll keep them in my closet, you think. I’ll be back in those skinny girl jeans, just you wait.

Well, like sands through the hourglass, so is the weight of our lives. Time happens. You have a baby. Then two. Then three. You shove food in your face because it’s convienient not because it tastes good, pack on some more padding and before you know it, your everyday jeans are a bit tight. They pinch your crotch when you sit down, and forget about trying to squat in them. At first you try out the waist extenders-you know looping a rubber band through the button hole and around the old button. This buys you a few months maybe, but you have to make double-sure that your shirt is long enough to cover the extender, because nothing is more embarrassing than having to rubber band your pants, especially if you aren’t pregnant. Pregnant people get a break on this. Your double latte gut does not.

So you go back to the department store and purchase the same size, but in stretch denim. This way you can still hold your head high (and button your own pants since there is a little give in the fabric) since you haven’t really moved up a size. But inevitably, you go there. You have to purchase the size of pants you swore you’d NEVER WEAR, be it a size 8, 12, or 20W. These pants are now the antagonist in your life. Your fat girl pants. You feel fat in them, you do everything you can to get out of them and back into your everyday size, which has now become your new dream goal. Don’t get me wrong, you still have those skinny girl jeans in your closet gathering dust. Those skinny jeans represent how we ultimately see ourselves; our everyday jeans allow us to hold onto the illusion that we will someday be what we once were, and our fat girl jeans hold our fear of getting to that place in life where there is no turning back. Those fat girl jeans are more motivating for us to make a lifestyle change than our cholesterol scores or high blood pressure.

Which is what prompted me towards the P90X workout. My everyday jeans were getting snug. They pinched my crotch. They even made me a little gassy. I pulled out my fat girl pants, put them on and breathed a sigh of relief. These two pairs of jeans are my post pregnancy pants and I absolutely love that they don’t pinch my crotch. But I don’t want my fat girl pants to become my everyday pants, and my old everyday pants to now become my skinny jeans. I know time marches on and my piles will shift eventually, but I’m not ready to throw dirt on that coffin yet.

How’s it going you ask? Are my jeans fitting any better than before? Well, let’s just say that P90X is A LOT harder than the infomercial lets you in on. Let’s just say that my next blog is going to be about the many things P90X doesn’t tell you. But I can tell you this, I’m not in my skinny girl pants yet, but I am wearing my everyday pants right now, and I had much less gas than last week. It’s a good sign.