When I was 250+ pounds I used to wear my underwear backwards.
I had a pretty funny flash back to this forgotten and semi-embarrassing fact this morning running with my friend Carlea.
Last year I bought some running tights on super-sale from some obscure running site. I do this periodically. I get wonky, weird, off-season, running clothes bargains. Once in a great while I find something amazing! It’s all super cheap and a fun, daring, fashion-themed shopping-game of adventure.
This time around it was colorful running tights super cheap.
I show up to meet my friend Carlea at the Saddle for a run. I wore the screaming-hot-pink tights today for the first time. They… uh… were built weird. But they were really cute! I told Carlea I figured I would get used to how they fit as we ran. (Always a bad idea. Running clothes/shoes really shouldn’t need a break-in period… But in the face of cute/fun clothes; I always forget this ‘trail rule’.)
How weird was the fit? There was a ton of extra fabric in the front/crotch area and they were what we will politely call ‘plunging low rise’ in the back. So I kept fidgeting with the stupid tights trying to keep them up over my butt.
We finally stopped about 3 miles in while I tried to figure out how to remedy the situation and keep running without flashing everyone in the forest. Carlea and I got to laughing — fairly sure I had to have the tights on backwards. We checked. Nope. But, they sure seemed to be built backwards.
‘I think I figured out why they were on sale’.– Me. Every time.
We got things sorted out and PG-rated for the rest of the run. I got to chuckling. I finally told Carlea that these tights were reminding me of a habit I had when I was obese. I had kind of forgotten about it.
I have always loved the idea of having matching bra/panties. I just do. When I was obese and desperately wanted to feel good about how I looked and wanted to feel attractive – this duo always did the trick. Cute undies was a near-daily goal. When I was wearing a size 26/28 the options were limited. Or ridiculous. Or really, seriously functional; steel belted bras with really wide straps, scratchy/ugly lace and cotton granny panties.
I finally, after years of searching and failed attempts, found a bra and undies set that matched and FIT and was cute. I was so freaking excited! I wore them all day at a conference, felt like a million bucks and was thinking I needed to go out and buy the dang undies in every color they made. As I got undressed at the end of the day…
I discovered that I had in fact worn the underwear backwards all day.
They fit perfectly, totally ass-backwards.
Huh.
Why had they fit so well you might be wondering? Well…. I was close to 400 pounds. And I was built very much like an apple with all my weight in my belly. With a really flat butt. My belly was significantly larger than my butt. So undies are typically cut to cover your bum and lay flat on your belly – right? They didn’t work for me and my apple-shape.
But wearing them backwards worked for my body…
So for about 10 years I pretty much always wore my underwear – cute or otherwise – backwards. A problem accidentally and creatively semi-solved. I never admitted it to anyone, never advertised it. But wasn’t proud of it by any stretch.
I was just too fat and misshapen to wear underwear normally…
So I adapted to what worked for me at that time.
So today Carlea and I were laughing over yet another clothing failure I snagged from a clearance rack.
I have lost weight and had the full-body lift surgery to remove 10 pounds of excess skin from my belly/waist. While I am still built a little funny at my waist with some skin scarring and bumpy surgical ‘seams’ at the sides of my hips — I now have a pretty typical ‘runners’ butt and fairly flat belly.
NOW I can totally wear matching bras/undies if I want to – without having to wear them backwards. 🙂 (I just have to remember to pack them in my gym bag. 🙂 )
Turns out that even putting my underwear on can serve a daily reminder of how my healthy lifestyle now is so different than my Type 2 diabetic/obese days.
Carlea and I both had a really good laugh as I shared this story with her.
I managed to get back to my car and not accidentally show my bum off on the trail.
Today anyway. 🙂
*Screaming-hot-pink running tights are now free to a good home.
all bets are off... 