Harder! Better! Faster! Stronger!

Since we moved to Switzerland two years ago, I started "Operation Get Slim".

Everyone around me was running nearly daily, doing triathlons "because it's fun and I was bored" and looking stick thin even though I saw them eating full fat cheeses, croissants and cakes all the damn time. BITCHES!

"How unfair", I thought as I stuffed my face with chocolate. Things were going to have to change.

Also, I started the operation as I didn't want to get married and look at the pictures thinking..."Wow... I was fat on the most important day of my life". 

Operation Get Slim was basically calorie counting with a help of a web community I found in Finland. On the side of counting the calories, there was an option to write a blog about my journey towards the smaller me as well as read other people's inspiring battle against their bulges.

In about half a year I lost a lot of weight and became tiny and gazelle-like. My frame is very petite anyways so when I am tiny, I mean I am tiny. However, losing so much weight in a short period of time made me a skinny fat (even though I was trying to work out every now and then). Gravity was winning the battle and I looked somewhat droopy.

Dammit, Operation Get Slim wasn't enough. I wanted to be fit, too!

Harder! Better! Faster! Stronger! 

After a lazy and difficult winter/spring I gained a couple of kilos (which was fine as at that weight I didn't have to think every single thing I was eating) but I also lost the little muscle tone I might have had before. My arms and tummy were now wobbly and my ass far from being pert. Hell, it was non-existent. Oh well, sometimes life gets you that way and you lose your motivation to challenge yourself.

In the summer, however, I picked up the tempo; concentrated on endurance and strength, started running and worked hard on my core. I have since become somewhat "bigger", I certainly do not look hungry anymore and I've gained more muscle around my formerly stick thin limbs. Yet my weight has stayed the same. Peculiar, eh? A girl can look very different in the same weight, I now know. Tummy is no longer the wobbly balloon it used to be but quite nicely sucked and tucked in (which is a wonderful thing for an apple shaped girl like me).

I bought a dress last November when I was at my lowest weight but I always felt I couldn't do the dress justice with my frame and so I tucked it away in the closet. And there it stayed, hidden, as I tried to forget I used to be size EUR34.

Today I took it out, being curious if I could still fit in. Would my tummy bulge out like it used to? Would my ass nearly fall out of it?

Eeeeek. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

Oh. Ok. It's not even tight?!

So, even though I've gained a couple of kilos since I bought the dress, I now fit it....better? With some thick black tights I have a nice Autumn outfit ready and won't be looking like a sausage roll.
















How absolutely refreshing. Usually things go the other way for me. I think I can fit into something and then regret ever trying the garment on. But not this time. :)
















Hoorray, now pass me that croissant, please...

One size doesn't always fit all.

Whereas my husband stood out in my home country, here I am the one who is "exotic".

Not because of my fair hair/skin or anything but mainly because of my height and shape. Here I could be considered as a (hopefully handsome) tall man. When my husband first saw me back in the day, his first thought was "Wow, two meter tall babies, here we go!". That's a true story, by the way. Who said romance was dead, sigh. Luckily, I didn't learn about this until after many years of being together.

Not only am I hovering in my own stratosphere but I'm also not the classical "junk in the trunk" pear shape, I'm rather an "egg on sticks" or "giraffe on roller skates" apple shape. My (unfortunate?) height doesn't come from my back but from my limbs.
And being this tall means also that my shoes are considered as canoes. Some locals could use them to paddle across the lake to France.

I usually haven't paid attention to my height or shape but here I feel it each time I'm trying to find clothes and/or shoes. If the trousers are long enough, they're for someone with more....uhm..."girth" than me. All fashionable skirts and dresses become mini skirts and cocktail dresses when I put them on. Shoes? Oh please. I might find a pair but rarely are they the pretty ones.

I'm not suffering alone as my husband's tall as well but there is far more choice for a tall man than there is for a tall woman. And I refuse to buy from any special shop as I don't consider myself to be a damn giant! I would be a shortie in The Netherlands, for example.

I think I have to visit home with an empty luggage and go on a shopping spree there before I freeze my boney ass here.

The giant has spoken.