Size matters

A week ago I had a meeting with some people who I have not seen in months As I greeted this group, the lead person asked me "Did you lose a lot of weight?" Today, I met wth an industry colleague and the first thing he said to me was "You look great, have you lost a lot of weight?" There are many other examples of this including a hit and run on the elevator today with a colleague from another floor who asked me the same thing.

I am happy that I've lost weight and it's always nice to hear that you look good (apparently I looked much worse 35 lbs. ago) but I still look forward to the day when I run into someone that I have not seen in a while and that's not their first reaction. For one thing, I hope to maintain this (healthy) weight level and as long as I continue my running I will. The other thing is about stabilizing my wardrobe. For the last 20 or so years I've worn the same size for suits. My waist size may have expanded a little but I've consistently worn size large jerseys since college. Even as my weight decreased I was convinced that I still needed to buy my shirts in large but recently I was given a medium sized running shirt that fit me very well. I then realized (despite the many times my wife tried to point this out) that clothes should fit you in a way that shows that you actually have a body shape. Over the last six months I've had some of my suits tailored to fit my form better. While that has allowed me to walk around without fear that my pants would fall down, my suit jackets still resembled the one David Byrne wore in the concert film "Stop Making Sense."

Last weekend I actually spent some time in clothing stores and bought two new suits, a bunch of (medium sized) t-shirts, some shorts that fit me and swim trunks that are far less likely to leave my body after diving in the pool than my current pairs. The downside to having correctly sized clothes is that more people are apt to notice my weight loss.