The Audacity of Feeling Good

Letting go of old clothes, old fears, and the idea that joy requires permission

I wrote an article a while back called 52 pounds down and just normal, and I keep coming back to that phrase - just normal - because it still catches me off guard.

Mabel and I talked about it again at dinner recently. I said it almost the same way I did the first time, like I’m still surprising myself.

“I thought I was normal before,” I said. “And I still feel normal now.”

Not “skinny girl” normal.
Not a model or a statuesque or an aspirational Instagram normal.

Just… normal.

With a few more wrinkles.
Some pesky saggy skin that didn’t get the memo.
Arms I wouldn’t mind toning. A back I notice now and then.

You know, the way people think about their bodies when their bodies aren’t the main event anymore.

The Closet Moment

This past weekend I had an event up north and needed an outfit. I live in a warmer climate now, so I dragged out the part of my closet I haven’t touched in over a year, cold-weather things, dressier pieces, all the this-should-work clothes.

None of it worked.

Every pair of pants slid straight to the floor. Didn’t pause at my hips. Didn’t pretend to try. Just down.

I stood there for a second, blinking, because until that moment, those clothes had felt completely normal to me. I hadn’t registered how big they were. They weren’t “old clothes” in my mind; they were just my clothes.

And suddenly I was standing in my bedroom surrounded by fabric that no longer belonged to this body.

This should have been one of those joyful, movie-montage moments. Instead, I sat down on the bed and stared at the pile.

The Baggage on the Bed

What surprised me wasn’t that the clothes didn’t fit. It was the emotional inventory that immediately followed.

First thought:
What if the weight comes back?
That old background fear, the one that’s lived quietly in the back of my mind for decades, still knows how to clear its throat.

Second thought:
What a waste of money.
These were good clothes. Timeless pieces. Things I loved. I found myself wishing, irrationally, that they could just be four sizes smaller.

Was that about money? Or was it about not wanting to let go of a version of myself I worked very hard to survive as?

Third thought, the trickiest one:
Am I allowed to enjoy this?

Will people judge me for buying new clothes?
For liking my body?
For having fun with it?

There’s a strange cultural belief that if your weight loss involves medical help, then your happiness is provisional. Borrowed. Suspect.

Like joy has to be earned the right way.

That one might be therapist-level baggage.

The No-Win Conversation

I spend an odd amount of time defending people around weight loss these days - all people.

If someone is heavy: Why don’t they just take the drugs?
If they take the drugs: That’s cheating.
If they have side effects: They deserve it.
If they’re happy: It won’t last.
If they buy new clothes: Don’t get too comfortable.

Somewhere along the way, obesity became the only disease (and yes, it is a disease - and yes, that should be another Substack article) where treating it is considered a moral failure, and enjoying the results is seen as arrogance.

That noise doesn’t just live online. It seeps into quiet moments. Like sitting on your bed with a pile of clothes that no longer fit, wondering what you’re allowed to feel.

What I Did With the Clothes

I couldn’t stand the idea of tossing them into one of those donation dumpsters where things go to die slow, moldy deaths.

I took them to a local thrift store instead. The woman who sorts the clothes there is wonderful; stylish, sharp, warm. She gives a running commentary on your wardrobe with a practiced eye, calmly critical in a way that never makes your things, or you, feel disposable.

There’s a keep pile. These are the clothes she wants.
A not-right-now pile.
Gentle suggestions. Some things could go to Goodwill, and a few things to “please bring back after Mardi Gras.”

At one point, she looked at my two very large piles and asked, casually, “So what made you bring all of this in today?”

I told her the truth. I’d lost a significant amount of weight. I’d been holding onto these things for more than a year. It was time.

She didn’t cheer immediately. Instead, she paused and asked, kindly and tactfully, whether the weight loss had been for good reasons. Healthy reasons. Was I okay?

Only then did she champion it.

That moment stayed with me. Because it wasn’t judgment. And it wasn’t blind celebration either. It was curiosity and care, not shame.

Date Night, Food, and Forgetting the Scale

Ironically, I got a little money for the clothes.

Even more ironically, I used it for a date night with Mabel. Food was involved. No guilt was invited.

Here’s something else I don’t do anymore:
I don’t weigh myself every day.

In fact, I forget to weigh myself.

I don’t go to dinner thinking about what the scale will say tomorrow. I don’t panic about two pounds that used to feel like a moral verdict.

Last night we had cacio e pepe, orange wine, and a truly excellent labneh-based dessert. No salad. No visible vegetable. I noticed that, not with shame, just awareness.

That’s new.

This feels less like body celebration and more like body neutrality with a side of peace. My body isn’t the project. My life is.

Women, Joy, and the Audacity of Feeling Good

On Sunday morning, we watched a segment on Jane Pauley’s show featuring Oprah Winfrey, a conversation about the psychology of weight loss and the shame that still clings to both the disease and the medications that treat it.

Later that night, over dinner, the same date night paid for with my thrift-store clothes we found ourselves talking about it again.

Oprah has always struck me as calm and settled. But this time felt different. She didn’t sound like someone still negotiating her body with the world, or bracing for the next chapter. She sounded certain. Quietly confident. At ease.

What stayed with me wasn’t anything dramatic she said. It was the sense that this wasn’t another public “before and after.” It felt final in the best way, like someone who wasn’t proving anything anymore.

And that made me think about permission.

Women, especially older women, are allowed to be grateful for our bodies.
We’re allowed to be healthier.
We’re allowed to be smaller… as long as we don’t enjoy it too much.

But liking our bodies?
Buying clothes because we feel good in them?
Letting that joy exist without apology?

That still seems to make people uncomfortable.

Where I Am Now

I don’t know exactly what the road ahead holds.

What I do know is that this time feels different, not because I’m thinner (although that feels different and lovely), but because I’m informed. Because I’m not living in fear of my body anymore. Because obsession has been replaced with something very unsexy and very precious: normalcy.

I am, without really meaning to be, becoming an advocate against weight-loss shame. Not loudly. Not perfectly. Just honestly.

And yes, I’m buying something new to wear.

Not because I’ve arrived.
Not because I’m cured.
Not because I earned it the “right” way.

But because I live here now.

And this body, imperfect, changing, and thoroughly normal, deserves to be dressed for the life it’s living.

And if you’re reading this as someone trying to support a person you love through weight loss, know this: the greatest gift you can offer is not advice or approval, it’s permission to let them feel good.

This essay is part of a larger book I’m currently finishing up - a sequel to The GLP-1 Revolution - about what happens after weight loss: the emotional shifts, the social noise, the quiet freedoms, and the relief that comes when food and body size stop running the show. Each chapter in the book will include one of my Substack essays as a kind of lived timeline, capturing the real, in-between moments of this journey. This is one of those moments. Stay tuned…