As much as I would love to be able to blog about how I no longer have any food, eating, or weight issues and am sailing happily into the lost horizon of Maintenance, I’m afraid that would be a little misleading. Okay. A LOT misleading.

Even though I try to avoid a preachy tone in my writing here, I’m sure that at times I must come across as a bit of a know-it-all. As a result, from some of the e-mails and comments I get, readers are sometimes surprised when I mention ’stuff’ I haven’t completely worked through.

So, read at your own peril, ’cause there are days when I’m the blind guy trying to lead.

I’m musing on this today because for the past week or so I’ve been suffering from what I call ‘Straight A Student Syndrome.’ You probably know what I mean. Its that mounting anxiety that comes with each POSITIVE piece of feedback. The more you string up success after success, the scarier it is to imagine what would happen if you weren’t doing that.

Aside from the fact that I think I’m genetically anxious (what? They haven’t identified that gene yet?), my incipient worry stems from the fact that I’ve been cruising along just a smidge under my goal weight for almost a month now.

Of course, that shouldn’t be new to me, this being my fourth year of doing maintenance. But when I gained my little ‘blip’ two years ago, I spent what seemed like ages and ages trying to step down off that plateau (even if it wasn’t dangerously above my goal).

The hypocrisy of the situation isn’t lost on me. Because I must admit I do spend a lot of time talking about how important it is to take your mind off of the scale reading. That scale is a ‘guide not a god’ as the saying goes. So whether its up or whether its down, its not possible to take that reading as an indication of one’s value or success.

In fact, I know full well that the most valuable ’successes’ have nothing to do with the number on that darn machine. The success of getting through one day (any day!) without over eating. The success of going to a restaurant with friends and ordering naturally with ease the things you really want. The success of tripping on a trigger food, but then getting up and starting over. The success of opening the closet and knowing you fit into every single thing in there. And on and on.

The reason I guess this all came crashing down on me today was that I ordered some really nice linen trousers from Banana Republic that came in the mail last night. I take perverse pride in the fact that I’m so small, they only carry my waist-size online – you can’t get a 29″ waist in the store. It’s a sort of smug little happy dance I do when I look at their store windows and think “Oooh, that’s nice, but of course **I**, Mr. Successful Skinny Person, will have to ORDER that online because I’m so TINY !!!”

Well, you guessed it. The trousers? WAAAAAY to snug. Sure, they close and zip, but I wore them for a few minutes last night and realized they really don’t fit.

And I felt this despondent, defiant “NO WAY AM I A ‘30′ !!” feeling. As if suddenly, after a month of ‘being perfect’ at my goal, now I have a new number that tells me I failed! Ugh, I will now have to GO TO THE STORE and return these for a larger size and the clerks will all know I am a failure !!

See? I told you.

Issues.

Now, of course (OF COURSE!!!) I know all about clothing sizes and how much they vary. Ironically, in industry-speak this variation in size is called the “Tolerance” (ha!). And of course I have TONS of 29″w stuff in my closet that still fits like a charm. And of course (OF COURSE!!!) I know that a clothing size doesn’t brand me as a success or a failure. And of course I know that I can proudly wear ANY size of clothing if I respect myself enough and have a healthy self-esteem.

But, dang! I wanted another A+