Getting into shape

I've been thinking a lot about getting into shape, specifically into the shape of the models on J.Jill's website.  As I look at those clothes, I find that what I really want to order from their catalog are the hips inside the clothes.  I only want the pants themselves if they will make me look like THAT. I used to be a scrawny little girl, too tall and gangly.  Now that I am the 30-something wife of a Foodie, I have become tall and "matronly."  That's the formula for making me into a "big" woman!  I started a new aerobics class recently, which I LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE because it plays the music I grew up aerobicizing to in the 1980s.  But like I'm in a bizarre alternate universe, I do the same steps to the same music, and as I watch myself in the mirror, I see the fattest woman in the room.  I used to be the skinniest.  What happened to me?  How did I get a belly that you can see carved in two by my waist band?!  A belly?  Are you kidding?  The last time I did aerobics like this, my stomach was sunken in past my hip bones.  They stuck out.  I can't even imagine that any more.  I'm not even sure they're still in there! In the meantime, I have been tormented by the "Set a Goal!" admonition that Daily Strength keeps giving us.  My main goal, my only goal, for a long, long time, has been to get pregnant.  But how can I set that as a goal and mark progress towards it?  If the problem were that I were too shy to sleep with my husband, and I did the dance of the seven veils, unveiling myself layer by layer, day by day, then I would have progress towards conception I could chart.  Instead, I give it my all, all the time, and it ends up being something that is totally out of my control.  Nothing to chart. So yesterday, when I felt uncharacteristically good about myself and my life, I left work early to go to the gym.  I left because I thought that my stress-wracked body deserved to have some exercise and get the week out of my system.  But mostly, I left because I wanted to go have fun in my aerobics class, which is held really early on Thursday evenings (6:30!).  So I got there and had a great, great time.  It wasn't exercise; it was fun!  Some day soon I'll take a picture of myself post-work-out, but suffice it to say that I am a very pale girl until I start moving around.  When you add blood circulating through my blood vessels to it, my face turns the color of a coke can.  Coca-cola Classic!  The only confirmation I have that I was actually exercising was that my face had done its THING.  Otherwise, all I knew was that it made me happy, I smiled the whole time, and I left singing. Last night when I got into bed, I felt light as a feather.  I felt great about our new RE, I felt wonderful about having exercised, and I felt hopeful.  In a good way. What could I do to keep feeling so light?  This morning I found on my favorite blog, www.shewalks.blogspot.com, reference to SMART Goals.  What are SMART goals?  They are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.  So instead of the very daunting "lose 40 lbs." I should aim to "work out three times a week through May."  In addition to sounding less scary, that takes away some of my fear about the conflicts between losing weight and getting pregnant.  I could never bear to write "lose weight" when I desperately wanted to be getting rounder.  And instead of "achieve sudden drastic weight loss," which would be detrimental to my "get pregnant" desire, all I have to do is some fun activity on a weekly basis.   Obviously weight loss usually involves both exercise and diet changes.  But remember that study they came out with last year that said that women who eat ice cream get pregnant more?  They said they didn't know whether it was the higher fat content in their diet, or just the fact that they weren't dieting.  So I've been afraid of dieting.  In a fit of psycho-social-semantic genius, I figured out that with my "3x per week" goal, I don't have to address that.  I'm going to continue my reasonable existing diet, hopefully with a tiny bit less Diet Coke.  Maybe a pinch more portion control.  But mostly I will cut myself some slack on this. I hope that soon I will be able to move out of my Very Fat clothes into my Pretty Fat clothes, or maybe my Not Really All That Fat clothes.  That's by the time I need to go shopping for Maternity clothes.  Ah, maternity clothes.  Can't wait to get a really big, taut belly to go above my future slender hips.