ELASTIC, SPANDEX AND SLEEVES

I miss elastic waist pants. It was so much easier and faster getting in and out of the ladies room when that was my usual pant option. 

I know there is a lot of negativity around elastic waist pants - it's harder to recognise when you are putting on the pounds being the main objection; that they are not stylish being the second one.  For ease of wear - they were nice.  Now I have all kinds of fastening and buttoning and zipping everytime I make a trip to the ladies room. After so many years of slipping pants down and up in a single motion, it seems so time consuming.


Wish they would lengthen the sleeves!



I don't miss the limited clothing selection I had for years.  My daughter commented that she is enjoying seeing me express myself more through my clothes.  We went shopping together and I am getting more accustomed to having multiple departments to move through in search of things I need to fill in my wardrobe.  I don't really understand why there are so many departments with pretty much the same things being displayed, but I am getting used to it. 

I even bought a couple of pairs of work out pants at Costco.  Taking Zumba class is very different than just working out with weights and I need more supportive spandexy pants to sort of hold things in check.  New workout bras have helped, too.

My single frustration is the sleeves thing.  Losing over 100 pounds has left me in no position to leave my arms uncovered.  I have a lot of baggy, saggy skin going on and sleeves to my elbows are my preference.  For the gym I have worn shorter sleeved tee shirts, but I am not comfortable with the sleeveless or cap sleeve options most workout tops come in.  Luckily I have found a few long sleeved tops and shorted the sleeves for bike riding.  Gym wear is more challenging.

SHOPPING FOR THE SMALLER ME

"My clothes were hanging off me, but clothes shopping was overwhelming now. How was I supposed to go into a store with four stories full of clothing that I could fit into? All my previous shopping experiences had taken place within in the confines of a 16-by-16 foot store with limited selection."

I ran across that quote from a woman who had weight loss surgery and has written a book about it.  I wish I had kept the link along with the quote - because now I can't find it.  Anyhow - I totally relate.

I have always loved clothes and have complained for years that the designers and stores must hate us fat people because if there is an ugly fabric to be found - that is what they make our clothes with.  And the embellishments!  They stick rhinestones and puffy paint and all kinds of crap on the awful printed shirts.  The theory being it takes attention away from the size?  Big + shiny is not a good combination, in my opinion.

Then I got too fat to buy clothes in the stores and had to resort to online shopping.  You would think getting too big for Lane Bryant might curb one's appetite - but it didn't. At least there was more variety to be found and I could sort through the dozens of websites and find simple, classic clothing.  Sometimes the clothes arrived and the fabrics were terrible.  (I had a couple of shirts that felt like paper products.)  I had to learn which brands had consistent sizing and put up with shipping and return costs, but all in all I have maintained a decent wardrobe. 

I have always been complimented on my style and appearance;  told repeatedly that I don't "look that big" which I always attributed to my careful wardrobe.  I wouldn't wear things when they got too tight and the online clothes were inexpensive enough for me to update frequently. 

Now I am in a position to change things up a lot.  I still have about 25 pounds to my goal weight and I will continue to have major problem areas which will need camouflage.  When I went out to "real" stores a couple of weeks ago I was overwhelmed by the selection and prices and unhappy to find that most of the clothes were too small, still.  Sizing has gone nuts in the last 20 years!

I did find a few things to buy and reverted right back to my "preppy" style.  For instance, today (it is 80 flippin' degrees here)  I am wearing navy capri's and flats and an orange and white striped boatneck tee.  Yesterday I wore black pants, a black and white stripped tee, a black cardigan and black & white flats.  I bought 4 classic cotton shirts in blue, red & white stripe, white and yellow.

I am now in the smallest size offered in my favorite online store, and the prices are so much less than in the mall, so I am ordering a bunch of tee shirts to wear with cardigans and capri's to get through the Spring and then take another foray into the mall.

My sisters sigh over the fact that I wear red and black and the occasional other color - and I always have. I felt a little defensive when I was showing off my new outfits because I feel like I have other colors, too - but they are right.  I wear classic styles and classic colors for the most part and will likely stick with them for my new wardrobe.

Do you have your signature style?  Or do you mix it up and follow trends?

ADVENTURES IN SHOPPING

I have battled my weight since puberty.  During high school I worked really hard to keep it down and still felt like I was the big girl.  I wore a size 12 dress to my Senior Ball.  It was a beautiful, classic dress and my sister and even my mom borrowed it for events. 

I have kept it all these years and when Maggie was invited to a prom and didn't want to buy a new dress, I suggested she try it on - it's a wrap around in stretchy black jersey fabric making it easy for different sized women to wear it.  I was so shocked to see that it was too small for my size 8 daughter.  It was the first time I had run into "vanity sizing."

I am not hung up on sizing - I buy whatever size clothing I think fits best.  I am not one to wear my clothes tight and form fitting - I prefer to skim over my body and if I need to buy up a size, I do. (Maybe being hung up on clothing label size would have deterred me from gaining weight?)

Today I was reading some blogs and a woman who had weight loss surgery a couple of years ago said she is very surprised to find she's now a size 6.  She looked really great, not squeezed into a too small size.  Then I saw that she listed her weight as 154. The last time I weighed around 150 I was a size 14/16. In fact, that is the goal range I am hoping to get to.  So now I am going to be a size 6 or 8?  Cool. 

The interesting thing about this vanity sizing phenomena is that plus size clothes are not getting bigger.  In fact, many of the department store plus sizes seem to have shrunk down.  I buy most of my clothes online because of this.  I can get a 3x online that fits, but most 3x sizes in the stores don't fit!

In about 6 months my clothes shopping adventures are going to be interesting...

WEIGHT GOES DOWN - SIZE GOES UP

While shopping for a home staging client, I fell prey to one of the dangers of being in Marshall's, Ross and other discount stores - I shopped for myself.  I flipped through the 2 racks of Plus Sized clothes (always the smallest and saddest section of these stores) and came up with 3 tops to try on. 
That day I was wearing one of my old favorite shirts - a pin tucked denim shirt with a v-neck.  It is comfy but it really is too big on me now, I was even wearing a t-shirt under it.  It is a size 2X from Woman Within.   The tops I was going to try on were knits and by eye I could tell I needed to try them in 3X. 

Not one of those shirts fit.  They were too tight, and not just at the hip, where I know I am larger than the average woman.  (I have always had an "hourglass" figure - not busty but I have always had a small waist except now I carry more weight on my stomach and so the hip/stomach area is my hard to fit part.)

I wasn't looking for anything special, no occasion coming up demanding new clothes or anything.  But I must admit to some chagrin that I have lost over 50 pounds and I can't fit into a size LARGER than the one I am wearing!

When I was a young woman, there were no size 0 or 1 clothes.  I wore a beautiful size 12 dress to my Senior Ball.  I still have it.  My mom and sisters have borrowed it over the years because it is such a classic style.  When my daughter needed a dress for an event and we didn't really want to spend money on yet another dress, I suggested she try it on just to see if she liked it enough to wear it.

At that time she was a serious athlete, very strong and fit and she wore size 8 clothes.  She tried on my dress and it was too small.  I was dumbfounded.   It was my first introduction to how much manufacturers have changed the sizes over the years - vanity sizing they call it.

So my question is - if most women's sizes are cut bigger than they used to be...why are plus sizes being cut smaller?  I know there are inconsistencies between designers and fabric types and all that, but has anyone else experienced this?