Hello, Size 2

On Friday I blogged about the need to buy new clothes because my old ones look like I am a child playing dress up with the clothes of an adult. Not that I'm that small... I'm still within the range of "Normal" though at the very bottom of it. But I am no longer the size I was when I bought most of my business clothes.

So... I went shopping today in the second hand store where I've gotten stuff before, including the dress I wore to the Inaugural Ball for the PA governor two years ago. (amazing red silk dress... with matching handbag... $44 total)

I don't think I realized how much my appearance has changed until today.

I mean, sure, I admired myself in the mirror, I appreciated the compliments, I felt guilty because CR is both good for me and makes me closer to the American ideal of female beauty. But I didn't quite get it until I zipped up a size two dress and it looked just right. And I looked like a tiny person.

Now I should restate something that any CR folk reading this already know but that may be unclear to the non-CR folk. CR IS NOT ABOUT WEIGHTLOSS. Weight loss is a side effect, and the more severe the CR, the more unwelcome a side effect. CR is about life extension. I refer you again to www.crsociety.org which will answer any questions you may have.

But dealing with weight loss and all the attendant changes in your social life is a part of the early stages of CR, when you're going from the body that you had to the body that you'll live in until our friends the scientists come up with drugs that will allow us to eat Taco Bell bean burritos all day and still be gorgeous at 120. If any of you guys are reading this, get back to work! I kinda miss my burritos...

Anyway, I feel so different! I'm very glad now that I didn't spend much time in a size eight body. I think it would be harder to adjust to being smaller if being bigger had been a part of my life for a longer period of time. I was usually between 115 - 125 for most of my adult life, and only in the last year shot up to 137, as a result of the margarita and nacho diet that I have referred to in earlier posts. I saw the aging coming, I decided to try and stop it, and now it's a race against time. So I was used to being a small girl... never super model thin (somehow, even at low weights for my height, I manage to retain my curves. Another example of things I thought were bad that I now think are very good! Sometimes I think I was designed specifically for this experiment!) but normal thin girl thin. That makes it easier to live in the new body.

But today was a weird feeling. I actually felt guilty for how much pleasure I am deriving from my CR practice, while I imagine it is harder for other people. I mean, even my normally thin guy friends have trouble buying clothes that fit because in this country the assumption is that men over thirty will be fat! I can buy gorgeous clothes at 1000 - 1200 calories a day because of the American ideal of women as waifs... who would have thought that I would owe one minute of my happiness to Kate Moss? CR can be upside down day, several times a day.

In other news, this heat is terrible, and contines to zap my appetite, but I'm making sure that what I eat is high quality. I ate an eggwhite scramble, 100 calories of olives, and some tomato without the tofu that is now also without the scallions, since I forgot to purchase them. It has seseme oil in it, so the portion I had was 100 calories. That makes for a total of 360 so far today, and I am going out tonight in Chinatown with some friends, where I will be able to eat a giant plate of steamed veggies and no sauce.

I've had some wonderful conversations off-list with many CR folks this week, and I can't tell you how much I enjoy their thoughts and insights. I really mean it when I say that I think CR folks are the nicest people on earth. I'm so glad because if this works, we might know each other for a long, long time. I mean, who else are you going to watch re-runs of "You Can't Do That On Television" with in the year 2074?