I was a three sport athlete in high school. I played volleyball, basketball, & track, then played basketball in the summers. While I wasn’t great at any of these sports (I suppose I was decent at basketball), I am a coach’s daughter & lived in a small town. Ergo, in the Berndt house, we were playing sports.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I distinctly remember running in track with the other throwers (we were the not-so-skinny, not-so-fast group) when I said something along the lines of “These aren’t even my shorts!” I don’t remember why I felt the need to share this, but I do remember that my mom had put one of my dad’s pair of shorts in my laundry pile, and I packed them one day without even thinking about it. Since then, they’ve become my shorts.
Over the years, these shorts have become my favorite pair. They have paint on them because they’ve been painting shorts, they’ve been pajama shorts, workout shorts…basically they’ve been everything. I’ve had them forever, so it’s easy to forget that the reason I kept them was because some of my other shorts didn’t fit me anymore.
It’s been an easy thing to ignore, continually gaining more weight until those shorts naturally fit. I just accepted gaining enough weight that made me go up two-three pants sizes, and I had the shorts, so I didn’t need new ones.
Last week, I practiced running the race route for the Race Against Breast Cancer, 5K #2 on the year. All my shorts were in the laundry, so I grabbed my trusty favorite pair and off I went.
What I found out through the whole run is that my favorite pair of shorts are obnoxiously too big for me now. I consistently had to pull them up as I ran, and I’m not gonna lie, I thought they were going to fall down half the time.
I’ve lost 53 pounds. Saying that still seems surreal, and I still feel like the same person I’ve always been. The main way I’d been noticing the weight loss has been when I feel nauseous after eating foods that used to never bother me, today’s example being cake & popcorn.
But now I’m really starting to see it with my clothes, these shorts being a good example of that. I also wore pants to work last night that I’d bought after a 25-30 pound weight loss. Now even those pants are too big. I’m officially down two pants sizes…back to high school waist size…back to the sizes I thought I’d left behind for good.
I’m so unbelievably grateful for this transformation. This past weekend was race weekend. This picture (left hand) was taken of me over the weekend, and I honestly didn’t even know it was me when I was looking through them because it’s the first time in years I’ve looked at a picture of me and thought, “Wow, I’m skinny!” Another plus? I finished 5K #2 of the year in 30:08, a full two minutes plus faster than the race I ran in July.
I was dogsitting at my parents house this past weekend, and I left the shorts there. Dad, you can have them back…I don’t need them anymore 🙂
