Don’t pretend you don’t exactly which pair I’m talking about. I have them. You have them. They sit folded in the bottom dresser drawer, and we only break them out when our winter waistlines increase, in week seventeen of our pregnancies, when going to visit our grandmothers, or when we just want to be comfortable for once!

I’m learning to embrace the skinny jean trend. My favorite thing about skinny jeans is that the bottom of my pant legs don’t drag on the wet cement of parking lots, and they stay dry when the driveway is covered with four inches of slush. On the downside, I’m not a huge fan of the way they hug my thighs. Whatever happened to 1995 and baggy stonewashed jeans, pegged at the bottom? I’m still waiting for that trend to come back around.

Regardless of where you stand on skinny jeans, you probably have pants that make you look ten pounds heavier than you actually are. Unfortunately, they feel great, and you’d like to add them to your wardrobe for lots of reasons. You hesitate, not wanting other people to think you actually weigh ten pounds more than you do, but I believe it’s time to dig out our fat pants and wear them with pride. Here are a few reasons:

No one really notices, and if they do notice, you’re simply making them feel better about their fat pants.

Why do women dress to impress other women? It would be so healthy for us to stop this nonsense. If I wear a frumpy sweater and fat pants to a friend’s house, I can trust she’ll still love me. If the lady behind me in the checkout line feels better about her pants when she takes a look at mine, I’m actually boosting her confidence by wearing my fat pants.

You’re beautiful, just like this.

This is actually the primary reason we need to wear what feels good and walk in confidence: beauty isn’t defined by how much we weigh. Just as I don’t think my daughter is less beautiful if her Body Mass Index isn’t within the recommended range, wearing pants that are bigger than size 4 doesn’t make me less than beautiful. Beauty is most evident when in the way we treat others and live lives of love and compassion.

You’re an ever-changing work in progress, and your pants reflect it.  It’s ok.

Sometimes I need to wear my fat pants because I’m in a hard season of life. Things are stressful, I haven’t had time to exercise, and I’m shoving whatever I can find to eat into my mouth at all hours of the day. Other times, my pants sag and need cinched up with a belt, because it’s summer, and days are full of long walks, trips to the bike path, swimming with the kids, and movement. Just as literal seasons change, our lives are an ongoing work of change, growth, pruning, and being reshaped. It’s ok that our pants reflect it. Let’s stop being so hard on ourselves.

It’s time to stop trying to impress.

There’s a vast difference between a woman who walks into a room and looks for which circle of women might  make her feel validated, appreciated, and esteemed, and the woman who walks into a room and looks for someone to validate, appreciate, and esteem. When we stop living to fit in and impress others, we are free to love well, needing nothing in return. This is the fullest kind of life there is. Let’s stop trying to impress others by looking ten pounds lighter than we actually are. Let’s stop worrying about appearances and live from the heart.

You are not defined by your pants.

As women, we were designed to cherish beauty. We like to look pretty and feel pretty. We like striking clothes, and feeling attractive matters to us. In our culture, beauty and fitness go hand in hand. Let’s defy this cultural norm. While being healthy is important, let’s not pursue it to such an extreme that we let appearance define us. Let’s be defined by the love we pour out, not the way our pants hug our thighs.

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