Tan Fat

I own two pairs of Nike Tempo running shorts. I disliked the fist pair so much that I ended up buying a second pair. I’ll admit that this was not my most genius of moments. How did I get sucked into a second pair? Because every girl I know and every girl I see at the gym all have these shorts and wear them constantly. And they’re cute! Most people love these shorts. I have moved from a strong dislike to hating them.

My biggest issue with the shorts is that I was not born genetically gifted in the thigh region. That’s code for I have big thighs. It’s just the way it is, I can tone them up, but at the end of the day, they’re still just big. Do I wish I had cute, shapely thighs? Yes. But lucky for me, I have such a charming personality that the size of my thighs doesn’t seem to matter.

These shorts hit a little higher than mid thigh because hey, they’re running shorts, and all running shorts tend to be ridiculously short or practically non existent. For lying around the house or going to the grocery store, these shorts are fine. Once I attempt to actually do something physical in them, the problems begin. These shorts are a little short for my comfort zone to start with, so imagine my disgust when I start to run and they naturally ride even higher! There I am running along, flashing fleshy white chubby thighs to all who happen to pass by. This is not hot. And then I find myself focusing more on my stupid shorts than on running. Which makes the run suck. Which makes me hate the shorts even more.

After multiple attempts at running in the original shorts, I bought a second pair in a size larger, hoping they would add a bit of length. Nope, those ones not only ride up on my thighs, they also fall off at the waist and sag in all the wrong places. So now these Tempo shorts are on the inactive list. As in when I haven’t done laundry for weeks upon weeks, I’ll bust them out to wear around the house.

Yesterday they happened the be the first pair I grabbed out of the drawer and since it was almost 100 degrees out, I decided that more skin and less clothes would actually be a good thing. After lounging around in them all day, I decided to go for a quick run to stretch my legs. I knew the run would be short and I was too lazy to change my shorts so I just went in those.

Just as I suspected, the shorts still rode up my legs and drove me crazy. There was one noticeable difference since the last time I wore them though . . . . my thighs are now tan! It’s amazing the difference a tan can make on your self esteem, especially in relation to your fleshier parts. My thighs are still far from cute, but as I looked down during my run, they didn’t look nearly as bad as they usually did in these shorts.

It just goes to show that once again my mother was right . . . tan fat is better than white fat. As for the shorts, even tan thighs aren’t enough to make me want to take them off the inactive duty list.