Whatever I was doing back then didn't last long (it never did) and I regained anything I lost plus more. I always gained more once I gave up on any program I was trying. By the early 2000s, I was closing in on 250 lbs. which was the highest I had ever been up to that point. Little did I know I would blow past the 250s and gain another 56 lbs. soon enough.
As
I kept gaining weight, I was reduced to wearing only two pairs of slacks and three
dress jackets for work. Shirts I had
several to choose from and if they were tight, the jacket helped hide
that. My closet was full of clothes in
various sizes but I could only fit into a few items.
One
day I threw two of my three jackets in the front passenger seat of my car so that
I could drop them off at the cleaners after I finished running my weekend
errands. Imagine the panic I felt when I
had to slam the brakes for some reason I now can't remember, the jackets slid
from the seat onto the passenger floor, and my full cup of coffee
with cream toppled on top of my jackets!
When I saw that my jackets were soaked, my heart sank! I rushed to the cleaners but they told me they
couldn't guarantee the stains would come out because coffee stains are
tough. One jacket was white and the
other one was beige, both were linen and lined.
The cleaners tried, but to no avail.
Both jackets were ruined.
To
top it off, one pair of slacks (of the two I could wear) became useless because
the fabric between my thighs wore down and a small hole appeared. When you're very overweight, pants regularly
wear down between the thighs because your thighs rub together as you walk and
the friction wears the fabric away quickly.
Eventually the fabric gets so thin that holes or rips are inevitable. Pants don't last long because of it. That meant I had one pair of slacks and one
jacket left. Now what?!
At
the time I hadn't been clothes shopping for years because I only knew about one
plus-size store, Lane Bryant, and they rarely offered business attire. The internet was in its infancy back then and ordering stuff online wasn't anything like it is today. A friend took pity on me and took me clothes
shopping. She introduced me to several
plus-size stores, including Macy's Woman section which offered a huge selection
of business attire in plus sizes. She
also introduced me to Talbots, which is expensive but their clothes are really well
made and they, too, had a good business attire selection. Not all Talbots carry plus sizes but it just
so happened that the one that did was next door to the Macy's that offered the biggest
selection of plus size clothes.
As
we headed out to our initial shopping trip, my friend was sure I'd find plenty of clothes in my size, but I wasn't so sure. Luckily, I was wrong and I came home with
several outfits I could wear to work. What a relief!
I
resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to lose weight any time soon to
fit into anything I already owned so I got rid of everything and within the
next few months, I bought a new wardrobe by frequenting the stores that my
friend had introduced me to. I spent a
fortune on new clothes but it was wonderful to have choices every morning for a
change. I no longer panicked when there
were meetings scheduled every day because I had several suits to choose from
every morning. I wore these wonderful
clothes for a few years and even though I didn't like how big I was, at least I
always dressed nicely. It made me feel
great to have tons of nice, quality clothes available despite my weight.
Unfortunately,
I continued to gain weight and as I got close to the 300s, I couldn't fit into
most of my wonderful clothes any longer.
Once again, I had to keep buying bigger and bigger sizes so I could have
something to wear to work and once again I was reduced to only a handful
of things I could fit into. Now it was hard to find clothes in my new, bigger size and many times I was just
happy to buy anything that fit whether I liked it or not. Frankly, when you get to a certain size, nothing looks good on you anyway so you're just happy you found something that fits.
By the time I retired in the summer of 2011, I had clothes everywhere in the house. I even had two clothes racks in the front
bedroom to accommodate the overflow that didn't fit in my tiny closet. Anyone who saw how many clothes I had would
have guessed I was a clothes shopaholic.
The reality was that I was forced into buying bigger and bigger sizes
when I couldn’t fit into what I already owned and I kept the old stuff in the
never-ending hope that I could lose the weight so I could fit into them again.
In
retirement I didn't have to worry about what to wear every day. It didn't matter that I could only fit into a
handful of casual clothes. Who cared if
I wore the same thing all the time, I had nowhere to be every day. By this time I had been living in virtual social isolation for years so I didn't really have to worry about finding something to wear to go out socially because I rarely went out. When I did, I wore my typical drab, baggy clothes in dark colors.
A year after I retired, in the summer of 2012, I donated to Goodwill several bags of clothes that I couldn't fit into and didn't want anymore even if I could. However, I kept most of my former wonderful wardrobe in the hopes that some day I could wear them again, particularly since I didn't know whether I was going to want another office job in the future.
A year after I retired, in the summer of 2012, I donated to Goodwill several bags of clothes that I couldn't fit into and didn't want anymore even if I could. However, I kept most of my former wonderful wardrobe in the hopes that some day I could wear them again, particularly since I didn't know whether I was going to want another office job in the future.
Several
months later, in late 2012, I started my weight-loss journey when I joined
Weight Watchers. By the summer of 2013,
I had lost about 50 lbs. and once again I gave bags of clothes to Goodwill but the reason this time was that the clothes were way too baggy for me to wear. Now I could once again fit into most of the wonderful clothes I bought years before and I was glad I kept them. I even started to regret giving all those clothes away the year before because now that I had lost some weight, they would have fit.
From
late summer 2013 until late 2014, I was stuck on a 16-month plateau where my
weight didn't budge except to gain about 10 lbs. so I didn't need to go through my closet again. This
would all drastically change once I started working closely with my trainer, Flaminia
("Fla"), in late 2014. Boy,
were things going to change! I didn't have the slightest clue what was going to happen.
Since
November 2014, I've lost about 80 lbs. thanks to Fla and my body has shrunk so
much and so fast that I've been forced to go through my closet every three months
or so to get rid of everything - and I mean everything! The only thing I've kept all along are
socks. My wonderful wardrobe that I bought years before has all been long gone. There must be a few large women walking around my city wearing really expensive business attire that they got at Goodwill for pennies on the dollar. At least they're well dressed!
I've gotten rid of every stitch
of clothing I owned several times over this past year. I was shrinking so fast that many times I
didn't get a chance to wear something I bought just a couple of months
before. Pants that fit me when I bought
them would become so baggy in a couple of months that I could take them off
without unbuttoning the waistband or unzipping them. I remember one pair of jeans in particular. I bought them because I had nothing else to wear but I started losing weight so fast that I only got to wear them three times before I had to get rid of them. Shirts that fit me a bit tight
when I bought them would suddenly become so baggy that they looked more like
ponchos than shirts.
All the trainers at the gym who witnessed my weight loss happening in front of their eyes kept telling me it was time to get smaller clothes. At one point, a trainer came up behind me and clipped my baggy T-shirt on the back to expose my new, svelte torso. Fla calls my baggy clothes "ginormous" and often told me to get more body-hugging work out clothes. What they didn't realize is that I was in fact buying smaller clothes, but I was just shrinking that fast!
All the trainers at the gym who witnessed my weight loss happening in front of their eyes kept telling me it was time to get smaller clothes. At one point, a trainer came up behind me and clipped my baggy T-shirt on the back to expose my new, svelte torso. Fla calls my baggy clothes "ginormous" and often told me to get more body-hugging work out clothes. What they didn't realize is that I was in fact buying smaller clothes, but I was just shrinking that fast!
It got to the point where I started buying things in smaller sizes so that I'd
have something to wear in the near future. And
for those items I really, really liked, I bought them in two sizes: my current size and a
smaller size for the future. Whenever I
was meeting friends or had to attend a function, I had to go clothes shopping
because I literally had nothing to wear. Most women will say that even though they have
a ton of clothes available at home, but I literally and honestly had nothing
that I could wear because what I owned was just way too baggy.
A few months ago I made the mistake of buying too many articles of clothing in a smaller size thinking that would be as far as I'd shrink. I was wrong. Not only did I lose enough weight to fit into this smaller size, the clothes became obsolete before I could even wear them all. As a result of that pricey mistake, now I only buy a few items here and there to get me by until I
figure out what my final size will be.
From what I can tell, my top isn't going to shrink any more because my shoulders, chest, and back are really boney now and there's nothing more to lose from these areas. As of today, I've settled on wearing a large in shirts although I can also fit into some mediums, depending on the cut of the item. As for my lower half, I'm carrying excess weight from the waist down to my thighs so I don't know what size pants I'll be wearing eventually if I succeed in losing another 20 - 25 lbs. At this time, I only keep about three or four pairs of pants because buying any more would be a waste of money until I stop shrinking.
It sounds incredulous that I've had to purge my closet many times over in just one year until you realize that I lost more than 1/3 of my body, most of it in just the past year. Not only that, but I gained muscle along the way so my body was shrinking faster than the scale reflected because muscle weighs more.
I actually enjoy clothes shopping now and I have to rein myself in from getting too many items. It's hard to resist though because it's been such a long time that not only can I easily find things that fit me, the items actually look good on me, too. Now when I go clothes shopping because I outgrew (or more correctly, out-shrunk) what I already own, I debate whether I should buy this item or that item in my current size or a smaller size. Or perhaps I should buy them in both sizes? Decisions, decisions!
It's ironic that once again I'm reduced to fitting into only a handful of items, but this time it's for the opposite reason than what the old me faced for decades (i.e., getting bigger and bigger). All I can say is it's been an amazing "problem," albeit an expensive one.
From what I can tell, my top isn't going to shrink any more because my shoulders, chest, and back are really boney now and there's nothing more to lose from these areas. As of today, I've settled on wearing a large in shirts although I can also fit into some mediums, depending on the cut of the item. As for my lower half, I'm carrying excess weight from the waist down to my thighs so I don't know what size pants I'll be wearing eventually if I succeed in losing another 20 - 25 lbs. At this time, I only keep about three or four pairs of pants because buying any more would be a waste of money until I stop shrinking.
It sounds incredulous that I've had to purge my closet many times over in just one year until you realize that I lost more than 1/3 of my body, most of it in just the past year. Not only that, but I gained muscle along the way so my body was shrinking faster than the scale reflected because muscle weighs more.
I actually enjoy clothes shopping now and I have to rein myself in from getting too many items. It's hard to resist though because it's been such a long time that not only can I easily find things that fit me, the items actually look good on me, too. Now when I go clothes shopping because I outgrew (or more correctly, out-shrunk) what I already own, I debate whether I should buy this item or that item in my current size or a smaller size. Or perhaps I should buy them in both sizes? Decisions, decisions!
It's ironic that once again I'm reduced to fitting into only a handful of items, but this time it's for the opposite reason than what the old me faced for decades (i.e., getting bigger and bigger). All I can say is it's been an amazing "problem," albeit an expensive one.
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