New Pants Project: One Girl’s Sports Mall Fitness Journey

Wake up, eat breakfast, shower, and dress for work. Sounds easy until something disturbs the routine. My interruption came in the form of both buttons falling off my only pair of black work slacks. “Crap.” Most people would welcome the opportunity to purchase new pants, but that requires shopping; shopping requires getting a stone-cold reality check about my body weight. At least the buttons had only fallen off from old age instead of being tight; that’s a first.

May 2012

I’m not immune to body issue problems. From binging on food to starving, from wearing shorts over a swimsuit to jeans in 100° heat, I’ve dealt with food-related mental issues since I was in 7^th grade, and thank heavens it waited that long too. Seeing as I’m a woman in a first-world country, this should surprise no one. What may be surprising, however, is I was genuinely always bigger than my female classmates.

Since puberty, I don’t remember ever being below a size 12. While this may be deemed somewhat normal, it’s still plus-sized, and makes you stand out when your classmates are wearing a size 6 and lower. I treated the scale like a proverbial scorpion—step on it, and it will sting you.

Varsity tennis, the occasional Gold’s Gym personal trainer, and swimming (while no one was around of course) kept my weight in check until college. Let’s say I gained well above the freshman 15. Then I spent 2 years trying not to agonize over it (therefore making me eat more—dang that emotional eating) and dropped 2 dress sizes. Now I wanted to drop another before purchasing new work slacks—enter Sports Mall personal trainer Bobbi.

I have the opportunity to work with her for my new fitness journey. Short-term goal is to drop a dress size by January. (I started working out before Thanksgiving.) Long-term goal is I want to be a size 8—maybe a 6—by July. Hello Friday Harbor vacation. I will be posting updates about my progress as I continue.

About the Author: Ashley Hasna is a movie, book, and food lover (hence the needing to shed some inches) who loves to work with social media. Despite eating healthy, she still loves brownies. Follow her on Twitter.