BAGGY CLOTHES

I have always loved clothes and fashion. One of the most frustrating things about being overweight is the shopping. the clothes are so limited and ugly and poorly made. I have long felt that the dregs of the fabric industry are saved for the plus size manufacturers because it is so rare to find an attractive print.

Anyhow, I look forward to the day when I can shop the whole store and not one tiny "department." I really look forward to the day when shopping online for clothes is something I choose to do instead of the only option. Right now I am in a strange clothes phase. I have posted before about taking in my pants. I have done it a lot...the front pockets are starting to migrate toward the back! But that's OK.

It's the tops I am troubled with. I have a lot of polo shirts and short sleeved cotton blouses which are not suited to being taken in. But when I shop for new ones, they feel skimpy. I know the shirts I am wearing are really baggy and unattractive, but I can't seem to find anything that fits right. I must be between sizes, or the shirts are just not cut with the right proportions for me. I agree with Stacy and Clinton of What Not to Wear that oversize clothes make you look bigger, but I also don't want my clothes to be tight. Skimming the body, maybe. Some space between me and the fabric, definitely!

I have a few tops that I save for going out because they still fit pretty well. Not quite so baggy, yet. And I have some old ones boxed away that I still don't quite fit back into - I tried some on this morning just to see.

Maybe by fall my weight loss and the clothes in the stores will make for a better fit!

A NEW LIFE?

Since I started this effort to get fit early this year, I have lost 61 pounds. I was watching a commercial for Jenny Craig (or one of those diet programs) and a woman who had lost about that much weight and looked to be about a size 4 was talking about how she loves her "new life."

Those of us who are very much larger and have a lot more than 60 pounds to lose to get to a healthy weight can look at that commercial and think - well, a lot of things!! One thing would be that we wish we had gotten started on the weight loss when we only had 60 pounds to lose!

My thought was that the commercial is misleading when it suggests that you get a new life if you lose weight. It is really unfair to advertise that way. You get a lot of fabulous benefits, not the least of which is better health and the ability to shop in the 12 fashion departments of the stores and not the tiny little 5 rack Plus Size section hidden in the far reaches of the store next to the Maternity Shop by the Ladies Room.

The reality is that your life goes right along with you on your journey to fitness and a better BMI. Hopefully you will be more energetic and take advantage of more opportunities. You will enjoy the benefits of better health and attractiveness. Spend more money on cute workout clothes and less on take out food. Go on long walks and hikes and bike rides instead of hanging out on the couch.

So the first 60 pounds lost has not given me a new life - but it has shown me how to go about living the life I am living better.

MY CLOTHES ARE TOO LOW CLASS FOR MY TOWN

Sing "My clothes are low class for my town" to the tune of "I'm too sexy for my clothes" and see how you feel...

I have been emptying out the closets of my now too large clothing. Most of it is well worn, scruffy, wear around the house kind of stuff. I do have a few things for occasions and holidays that are nice and barely worn and even a few things bought on sale at the end of the season which were never worn.

I took a dozen things to the Lotus consignment store in Pleasanton which does NOT call itself a "designer" or "upscale" store. I had done my research and I knew my clothes would be rejected in those stores. My most upscale label being Coldwater Creek!

Well, they turned each and every item down. They won't take elastic waistbands even in linen shorts. They won't take cotton summer dresses (too cheap). No explanation on the rejection of the sheath with beaded sweater combination (maybe because it was from Dress Barn Woman?) They would take the silk blouse from Ann Taylor except that they needed $200.00 worth of clothes to open an account. Th sales woman was trying to be nice - but boy did I feel like I have been told I am low class or something! And I have a tough hide about these things.

I said something to her about the styles and labels being known to plus size women (I had a couple of Silhouettes catalog dresses) and explained that the prices of the dresses don't tend to run very high unlike a lot of the designer clothes. She kind of pointed to a rack of clothes and said that they had a plus size section but the owner wanted to keep the prices up at a certain level.

So it seems that, once again, the plus size woman is shut out. I work really hard to dress well. To fit my body and look nice and well groomed. In this shop I felt I was being told that is not good enough. Designers and labels that they think are worthy don't even make clothes that would fit me. So that makes me unworthy, too - right? How else am I to feel?

I will donate my clothes to the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop and they will sell them and that's fine. But I tell you, I will never shop in those consignment stores no matter how small my size gets.

SLIM MODELS AND PLUS SIZE CLOTHES

As I mentioned in my previous post, I shop for my clothes by catalog and online a lot. I have noticed that very few companies actually use large models for their clothes. Mostly I see them in the smaller, boutique companies. Lane Bryant may use an extra curvy woman or two for their ads, but in their catalog, the clothes are on skinny women.

While there is big applause for the use of "real women" in some magazine lay outs and ad campaigns, in reality:

“We found that overweight consumers demonstrated lower self-esteem – and therefore probably less enthusiasm about buying products – after exposure to any size models in ads (versus ads with no models). Also, normal-weight consumers experienced lower self-esteem after exposure to moderately heavy models, such as those in Dove soap’s ‘Real Women’ campaign, than after exposure to moderately thin models.” According to a new study by researchers at ASU, the University of Cologne in Germany and Erasmus University in the Netherlands, which demonstrates a link between model sizes in advertisements and the self-esteem of consumers looking at the ads.

Apparently, seeing what we would really look like in the clothes makes us feel bad, so we would not buy them, we would rather have the fantasy that we look like the thinner models in the clothes. (Rather than actually getting fit and wearing the smaller size.)

The area where we don't mid seeing the large models? When we are viewing ads for weight loos programs and gyms - in other words, when they are the "Before" version.

It appears we need to work on more than our love for fast food in this country! Living in denial is a big problem - or is it living in a fantasy world?

COUNTING DOWN TO MY TRIP

I am down to the last month before I go to my daughter's graduation. One of the motivations for my diet has been this event. First of all because I didn't want to get kicked off the plane for being too fat to fit one seat. Second because we would be walking all over town and I want to be able to keep up. Third because I want to look nice. Fourth - and most importantly, because I am tired of always worrying about all this stuff and it is time to just be healthy for the rest of my life.

So, I am doing quite well. I am losing, I am walking around and climbing stairs easily, as displayed on the college tours and I am fitting into my smaller clothes. This has not stopped me from shopping, however!

The last time I went to Philadelphia in May it was very hot and very humid. I understand that the heat was unusually high, but with high humidity, even a temperature in the 80 degree range is hot. So I am planning on wearing dresses with light cardigans to the ceremonies; both are being held outdoors, one in the morning and one in the evening.

I end up doing most of my shopping online. The stores carry such limited stock of plus size clothes that I find it frustrating to shop in person. Online the options seem limitless and I have gotten ok with returns and exchanges.

I do wonder about the people who design plus size clothes and what they are thinking sometimes - for instance, why are almost all the dresses sleeveless? Have you seen the arms on us larger women? Do you really want to see our arms? Because I don't! Some sundresses and evening dresses without sleeves - fine. But the rest of them really do need a real sleeve. Not a cap sleeve. Not a flutter sleeve. A real, cover the upper arm kind of sleeve.

So I ended up ordering a couple of dresses which are sleeveless, and I NEVER show my arms. So I am buying a few lightweight cardigans which are short sleeved and long sleeved to coordinate. The dress shown is navy and white from Land's End and I bought a yellow cardigan to go with it and navy wedge sandals.

Getting excited!