What do Cortes and Skinny Jeans have to do with each other? Tip: successful maintenance. Vanity Part 2.

Why does maintenance seem hard?  Probably because it is hard.  Keeping motivation going and avoiding the temptation of pulled pork BBQ platters with hush puppies and fries is a long, tough process.  It's hard because it never ends.  In this way, maintenance is very different than the weight loss process.  Theoretically, the weight loss phase has a beginning and end.  Maintenance only has a beginning.

Just as there are tips and tricks to taking the weight off, there are just as many tips and tricks to keeping it off.  Most of them center around the general topic of focus and motivation.  The problem with focus and motivation is that they are qualities that seem to come naturally to people other than me.  I have to consciously find ways to invent games and charades to keep myself motivated to stay on the righteous path of healthy living.

I often hear from countless women who talk effusively about the feeling of being able to shop in the "regular" section of women's clothing stores after losing their weight.  They talk about being able to show off their arms and legs.  They talk about buying pretty clothes, rather than just shoes and handbags.  They talk about the joy of buying a completely new wardrobe and then using it as a way of keeping themselves motivated to not regain their weight.  

So what is the equivalent technique for men?  It's time for me to once again delve into sharing my inner secrets in a way that will probably come back to haunt me in the form of taunts and other forms of verbal lashing.   So here it goes:  


I like to buy clothes that make me look pretty.  I like to buy clothes that make me look thin/fit.

There.  I said it.

First off, it might be helpful to review the fashion (or lack thereof) choices that I used to make when I was heavier.  Primary examples included anything baggy, loose fitting, "relaxed fit", etc.  Staples included roomy khakis with pleats and baggy jeans.  I used to wear pretty big, flowy (is that a word?) suits.  Big, heavy sweaters were staples.  It was kind of the fashion equivalent to standing inside of a refrigerator sized cardboard box.  Just because the box is big, is it necessarily the case that the contents inside are equally big?  Just because my clothes were big and baggy, wasn't there some possibility that something thin was on the inside?  

As I started to lose weight, I had the pleasing experience of having minor wardrobe malfunctions.  I began requiring the installation of more notches on my belt.  My shirts started to feel like tents and sometimes like small parachutes.  I started to squeeze up and fold over more and more of the waist on my pants.  By the time I reached goal weight, I started to look like Tom Hanks in Big when he reverted back to being a little kid stuck in a large suit.  Either that or David Byrne from Stop Making Sense.

On an emotional level, let me just say that this transformation completely rocked the house.  It is hard to express how happy I was when I shrank to a size 34 pant (down from 38, leaning north of that).  It is hard for me to describe how unbelievably awesome it is to have the sales guy at my fav men's fashion emporium start to direct me toward styles more suitable for, as he put it, "trim men".  It was shameless salesmanship on his part, and I completely fell for it.  With a big, fat smile on my face.

I began the process of buying thin guy clothes.  These included flat front pants with a trimmer cut.  I was able to buy a pair of Levi's with a so-called "Matchstick" cut.  Unbelievably, they actually fit without making me look like a 70's Jordache ad gone horribly awry (only Erik Estrada could pull that look off).  I started buying trimmer cut suits and jackets.  I was able to go down a couple of neck sizes, and I asked the store to take in the sides of the shirts for a slimmer fit.  In short, I have now completely replaced my wardrobe, head to toe.  In the process, I have turned into a person whose pulse rises when confronted with nice looking apparel.  I actually like shopping, and I don't need my wife to pick things out for me anymore.  I frankly find it all slightly frightening.

So what does all of this have to do with staying on maintenance?  Answer:  everything!  All of my stuff fits me well now, but a 10 pound weight gain would be disastrous.  10 pounds is all it would take for me to look like a stuffed sausage.  Given that I fancy myself as kind of a dandy these days, Dave in a bratwurst costume is just not an acceptable outcome.

The story goes that Cortes had all of his ships burned so he could then go on to conquer the Aztecs, destroy their culture, and enslave millions.  He burned his ships to prevent his men from falling into mutiny. There is a lesson in this for me (no, not the enslaving part):  one way to prevent healthy habit mutiny is to burn my own ships, in the form of my prior wardrobe.  Or maybe something more productive like giving it to Goodwill.  Which is what I plan to do today.

Moral of the story:  when applied properly, vanity works.

Cheers,

dk