A Couple More Clicks
The scales didn't tell me. The jeans did. Halfway round a woodland walk, my wife pointed out my trousers were on their way to my knees, and the belt had to click a lot further than I'm used to.
The wife and I took the dogs to Doggy Disney, which is our pet name for Brandon Wood.
Both Roxys loved walking there, and it’s a proper walk. Sadly the nearest pub is a mile away, so there’s no turning it into one of those “let’s take the dogs out” excursions that conveniently ends in a pint.
At some point the wife, walking behind me, said:
“You need to buy some new jeans. Those ones are hanging off you.”
I looked down. She wasn’t wrong.
They’d ridden down far enough that the crotch was somewhere around my knees, and above the waistband you could see my Original Basics.
I had apparently wandered into the woods dressed as a middle-aged gangster. Which is a bit too gangsta for me.
So I hitched them up and tightened the belt.
It’s a ratchet belt, so it actually clicks. A couple more clicks. Then a few more. Then quite a few more than I’m used to.
Different clicks from the ones this blog is named after, but I’ll admit the pun wasn’t lost on me.
What I didn’t expect was how good it felt.
Not just having trousers that stayed where they were supposed to. Something else. Cinched up properly, I felt lighter, better somehow, and a bit more buoyed than I had a few minutes earlier.
So I walked further.
I think that’s what got me. It wasn’t a number on the scales, or a BMI, or a chart. It was a bloody belt, and my wife noticing before I did.
You don’t really see your own body getting smaller. You’re in it every day. Your clothes notice first. So does whoever’s walking behind you.
I’ll need to buy some new jeans.
But I’ll keep the belt clicking a while first.