I recently visited Kohl’s to, finally, get some new new shirts.
I am a t-shirt guy. I enjoy a good t-shirt. My favorite bands have cool t-shirts. I am comfortable in a t-shirt. However, there are times when a t-shirt is not appropriate attire, or so my wife tells me, anyway.
Therefore, I own several polo shirts. You know, the kind that are cotton, have 2 or 3 buttons and a bottom that you can leave untucked, which is how I prefer to wear my shirts. The untucking is not a holdover from when I was fat and just didn’t want the outline of my gut to be so well-defined. I remember being a skinny kid in high school and not tucking in my shirt. Not sure why, but I dislike it.
Anyway, at Kohl’s I found a couple shirts I liked, and on my way to the register, I saw the Levi’s. I thought, “I could use some new jeans.” I only buy Levi’s, because I like the way they fit.
The fact is, though, that I’d just recently spent a couple hundred bucks on Levi’s, and I’m not made of money, so even though the jeans I had were a bit too big now, they fit well enough, so…. But, still, out of curiosity, I thought I’d try some on.
I grabbed a pair of skinny 31s and a pair of regular fit 30s off the shelf. I didn’t really think I could fit into the 30s, but, what the heck, let’s just see.
The skinny 31 waist jeans fit well. I almost bought them.
Then I tried on the regular fit 30s. They fit, too. Okay, to be honest, they are a little snug, but I could easily close and zip them, and I could wear them in a pinch.
Size 30 waist? Really?
When I started my quest for fitness, I was wearing 42s and looking to buy 44s.
The smallest size Levi’s I’ve ever worn was 28 waist. That was back in the 70s, when the waist rode higher on Levi’s, but, still, to actually be able to close and zip a pair of size 30s today … wow, that was huge for me.
I didn’t buy the jeans, and will keep wearing my fairly new 32s, but, it got me to thinking: How thin is too thin? I mean, people develop eating disorders because they keep looking in the mirror and perceiving themselves to be fat, when they are not fat, right?
I did a bit of introspection, and, suffice to say, I am not too thin. I can still grab fat around my waist. I cannot see all my abs, so I can remain healthy and still be thinner. Will I be comfortable much thinner? Will I be able to maintain thinner if I get there? Possibly not. But I want to get there and find out — I at least want to give it a shot.
It has taken 5 years and 75 pounds for me to get where I am, so it’s not like I’m rushing it. I don’t obsess about it. But each of us must figure out  for ourselves along the way how thin is “too thin”.
I am not sure what “too thin” is for me. I only know that I have not yet reached that point.