Losing Weight Is Expensive

First, we’re back from Arizona. And I must say, it was an excellent trip, to put it lightly. Desert shooting, Teeth, my first beer in some four months and seeing the ol’ runnin’ crew; this trip had it all! In total, we have almost 900 pictures from the trip too. I’ll get those up as soon as I settle on some gallery software for sure. I’ll say it will happen soon, but let’s face it, it probably won’t.

I’m now pretty stable at 160 pounds, which was my target weight. Along with all of the fat, I lost a lot of muscle mass too. To help with this, purchased and now regularly use a set of Pushup Pros, an Ironman Double Ab Wheel and an SPRI medium strength resistance band. I’ve managed to get some muscles back in my arms and chest (more than I had before, in fact), but I really need to focus on my stomach now. I’m much thinner, but I’m still pretty flabby around the mid section. Hopefully I can get into some crunches/ab wheel/yoga routine, but we’ll see; the running should help once I start that back up too.

And that brings us to the title of the post. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had to buy all new clothes. This is fine, and it’s something I pretty much needed to do anyway, my clothes were old and I needed freshen up the wardrobe. Unfortunately, this also means that my kickass leather jacket no longer fits. Officially, the jacket was a size 46, which Fox Creek Leather says should fit people with about a 46 inch chest. It was little big on me before, but not too crazy. Now, my chest measures in at 39 inches, and the jacket is so big on me as to be uncomfortable to wear. It looks like I’m going to fall into the thing and never come back out. This makes it bad for a motorcycle jacket.

I contacted Fox Creek Leather to see if they offered any kind of buy-back program so I could exchange it for credit towards a new one, but it’s not something they do anymore. Shame since the jacket is not even a year old and still looks brand new (and thanks to a fresh coat of conditioner, smells that way too). So now I’ve got to hit up some other people I know who ride and see if they are interested in the jacket and if it will even fit them. If that fails, I’m going to hit Craigslist and, if I have to, eBay. I might also see if I can drum up some interest in some motorcycle forums, but that might look odd as a first post from me.

Anyway, I’ve ordered a new jacket in a size 40. It’s the same Vented Reflector that I had before, just in the right size. I asked a bunch of people I knew which of their jackets looked the best, and nearly everyone came back with that one, and I’m inclined to agree. In the end, I expect the exchange to cost be between $100 and $150, making it the most expensive single piece of clothing I had to replace, but I think all in all it’s worth it. I look a lot better, have more energy and in general feel a lot better now.

Saturday I plan to get the bike back out and on the road for the first time this season; very exciting! I’ll also get to check out Jay’s brand new (as I purchased today) Audi A4.