I’ve been walking around for the last month feeling like I’ve lost weight.

I only get weighed at the doctor so I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty confident I have not lost any weight this year. I have been going to the gym, but not as frequently as I should. I have been working to increase our family vegetable consumption, and that has been a small success. But my local grocery store has been running their annual buy-one-get-one deal on all ice cream this month, and let’s just say that’s been a success too.

I realized just today that I feel like I’ve lost weight because my summer capri pants are loose. They’re loose because I bought them a size up from my normal jeans thinking that if I did so they would better accommodate my large butt, even if it meant I’d have to have the waists brought in (which I did). But even with tailoring they are just still too big.

The disturbing aspect of this is the confidence boost I’ve been experiencing, this sense that when people look at me they see someone who is successful. I am, apparently, still in thrall of the widespread belief that to lose weight is a sign of success while to gain weight is a sign of failure. (I find this dichotomy even more offensive now that I witnessed my friend waste away into a skeleton while he was dying of cancer earlier this year. And yet here I am, still buying into it on some subconscious level.)

Anyway, this is the new trick to boost confidence! Buy your pants one size up and you’ll never need another self-help book again!

I might be that easy.