My fear wardrobe

Lawrence Toppman:

It would be easy to write some cornball blog on July 4 about "independence from a big belly." (Though I never was as fat as King George III.) Instead, I'll just say I'm holding fast at 183.5, with 11 pounds gone since the start of the year and apparently staying off. The big push to get down to 175 begins in the second half of the year. That doesn't sound like much to you fit folks, but it won't be easy.

I'm in that weird place between sizes, where my shirts are large at the neck, and my belted jeans bag at the back and slip down like a rapper's pants. I don't dare convert my wardrobe yet, so I'm waiting until I get all the way back down to the next size to tap my credit card.

I'll probably keep the larger sizes -- what a friend of mine calls his "fear wardrobe" -- in the closet for years, just in case I backslide. But it would be lovely to fit into new clothes for the first time in decades.

By the way, a kindly neighbor brought his chain saw to chop up the fallen pieces of box elder, saving me many hours of labor. I didn't sweat off excess calories with my hand saw, so I've had to be discreet when opening the ice cream shelf of the freezer. Yeah, there's a shelf filled with those 3.5-ounce single servings, but I don't visit every day.