Thigh Gap For Chubby Women

If you pay attention to vapid twenty-somethings, you might have heard of the quest for “thigh gap,” which is basically the space between your thighs when you’re standing with your feet together. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

If you’ve got some meat on your bones, you know what it feels like to leave the house on a hot day in a pretty skirt, walk a block, and then run back home to change into shorts. I don’t know about you, but my idea of a fun summer day doesn’t involve icing my burning, chafed thighs. And yes, I’ve tried Body Glide – it’s not up to the challenge, unless you want to reapply every ten minutes.

Last summer I had a bit of a breakthrough. I was still going strong on the FastDiet, but wasn’t training for any long races (I tend to gain weight when I do a lot of running – I eat like a maniac). I was at my lowest weight in more than a decade.

My husband and I went away to Rhode Island for a long weekend, and I packed several cute dresses for our planned fancy dinners.

Bicycle shorts of shame

When it was time to head into town for our dinner reservation the first night, I put on a dress and reached for my bicycle shorts. And then I reconsidered. I’d lost some weight. Was it enough to keep my thighs from rubbing together painfully during the 20 minute walk from our hotel to the restaurant?

I gave it a try. And when I got to the restaurant chafe-free, I was giddy! And I had an entire summer without bicycle shorts (except when I was actually on a bicycle).

But right now I’m seven or eight pounds heavier than I was last summer. And while that hasn’t made much of a difference in how I look, it was just enough to reverse last summer’s thigh gap victory. That really hit home this past weekend when I was waddling around water parks in a bathing suit.

And this is really highlighting for me how weight loss is not about a number, it’s about how I feel. Sure, I have an ending number in mind, but it’s not a magic number that I picked out of the air. I remember how I felt last time I weighed that number, how going clothes shopping was fun because clothes fit properly.

And my bike shorts were only for biking.