It’s official: I do not fit into any of my dressy dress pants. AGAIN. This is the second round I’ve outgrown in 12 months. I have exactly two pairs of pants that I can wear to work, both casual chinos that do not make me look important. This is unacceptable.

The most common place for a woman to gain weight is around her hips and thighs. This is also the unhealthiest place for her to gain weight. And it’s the ONLY place I’ve gained weight, resulting in a curiously pear-shaped frame that’s still skinny on the top (sigh) and towards the ankles.

Even if my pants did fit – and even if I had oodles of money to buy new pants and not worry about that anymore – I know I’ve developed a pretty unhealthy lifestyle lately. I eat crappy food and drink beer and god knows I don’t exercise. The fact that I’ve gained 25 pounds in the last year and a half is a red flag – something about my body is changing, so something about my lifestyle must change too, right? Many people who are really overweight got that way because they didn’t attack the problem when it was manageable. I don’t feel like I’m in danger of becoming obese… but who thinks that when they’re still pretty close to their healthy weight range?

Uh, no one.

So we eat and eat and sit on our couches and barstools and gain just one more pound at a time. I’ve rolled with the good metabolism for long enough; now my luck is wearing off and my once rock-solid abs are hiding under a little layer of mush.

E and I have decided to make some changes together. He’s a lot like me, habit-wise: beer and crap food and laziness. We play volleyball and walk to and from the bars for exercise. So we have decided:

• Light beer only from now on. We will accomplish this by sharing a pitcher of Bud Light so neither of us is tempted to make that second glass a Budweiser (him) or a Landshark (me).
• Take walks together. Ride the bike (him only, because I can’t – bad knee).
• Eat grilled chicken strips instead of fried (seriously, we eat a lot of chicken strips so this is huge).
• Buy Lean Pockets instead of Hot Pockets. Stock the house with healthier snacks overall.
• Find a new vegetable to like AND EAT IT.

He’s also said he won’t go through the free buffet at the Very Nice Restaurant more than once per shift. I’ve added a few little things of my own too. I know I don’t really need to lose much weight (10 pounds would make me happy and put me in a healthy-weight range) but I do need to stop being such a sedentary bum. I’ve always been kind of a slacker in the exercise department and for twenty-eight years I’ve gotten away with it because that’s how my family rolls. We start off skinny, sometimes too skinny, and it’s not the Freshman Fifteen but the late twenties that pack ‘em on. Add that to the family history of high blood pressure (check), weight gain (check) and high cholesterol (safe so far) and it’s pretty clear that the time for change is now.

I don’t want to end up struggling to lose 50 or 60 pounds down the road. I know that if I do better now, I probably will never have to do that.

So I am going to…

• Clip on that iPod-looking pedometer from the Wal-Mart swag bag at BlogHer and make sure I walk at least 2 miles per day.
• Walk to and from the work parking garage as long as it is not raining and I am not wearing dress shoes.
• Look at books about healthier eating habits that are not super-restrictive, like the F-Factor Diet and the Small Changes, Big Results method. Then I will try to do those things.
• Not eat candy.
• Get some of those Skechers Shape-Ups so I can tone my muscles more as I walk AND improve my posture and my abs. They’re supposed to be easier on my bad knee too. (I will keep you posted on how those work out.)

Today I weigh 137 pounds, top of the healthy range for my five feet and three and a half inches. It ends here. “Operation PANTS” has begun.

Got any tips for a lazy girl who doesn’t like vegetables and can’t afford a trainer?