Tag Archives: Fashion

Catalog of Horrors: The Sequel

Battle of the Butt, Get Real!, , , , , , , ,

I mentioned the other day on my Facebook fan page that I got another plus sized clothing catalog in the mail.  I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to one retailer in particular.  Their clothes are the worst quality…and they have a habit of using slim models to try and make plus sized clothes more appealing.

I really want to slap the bejesus out of whoever sets up this catalog.  The sales pitchy verbiage is condescending on its own – but then when you add the slim & trim models into the mix, well…they’re basically saying “Hey, fat girl!  Doesn’t this hideously ugly outfit with the giant strawberry embroidered on the front look absolutely red carpet ready?  Jennifer Anniston wore one just like it last week when she was in Mexico on vacation!  In fact, here she is modeling our stretch pants with reinforced cotton panels.  Isn’t she HOT?”

I am not so weak minded that a sales pitch and a skinny model can convince me to buy leggings and expect that my legs will look like the model’s.  No.  Every time I see this catalog in my mailbox, my blood boils just a little bit.  But I always have to open it…because, in some sick way, it makes me laugh.  I start wondering what the hell the photographer says to these poor skinny girls as they frolic to and fro while wearing the shapeless crap that we chubby girls have to wear.

I picture a beach…a sexy photographer named Enrique is snapping photos of our models…let’s listen in:

Enrique:  “That’s right, Kayla…that’s right…so beautiful!  Bend over a little, baby…come on.  Kayla, bend over a little.  KAYLA, can you hear me-”

“Enrique?” the photographer’s assistant butts in.  “It’s the mu-mu…she could be clog dancing under that thing and we wouldn’t have any idea…”

Poor Enrique…he has to try and dress these hotties up like chubbies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s move into what they call…the Comfort Lounge…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then there’s poor Kelly, the model who’s career is obviously slipping…

 

Poor thing.

 

Nice!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, perhaps I’m a little too harsh on these people…I’m sure there are some 5X girls who love leggings and want to wear them. And as much as I don’t understand that, I support their right to wear it. And some of the clothes in these catalogs are actually passable for cute – that is until you wash it for the first time and it comes out looking like a 10 year could barely squeeze into it.

Seriously the clothes I have from this catalog have shrunk so bad that they’re now my “post shower outfit”. I don’t have a bathrobe – so when I get out of the shower and dry off, I put on the tunic I bought from this catalog. It’s still wide enough to fit me, but the bottom just barely covers my stomach and it balloons out at the bottom. Weird. Then I slip on the pants. Yeah, they were supposed to be just regular pants, but now they’re capris. Quality clothing.  So that’s my post-shower outfit.  I look like an extra from The Hobbit movie.  Meet me at the Party Tree for tea and cakes!

I’m frustrated this week.  We all go through this once in a while.  I just woke up and had the realization “22 lbs?  That’s all??  Wow…that isn’t very much.  I suck!!”  It’s been nagging at me for a few days, but the thing is – even in the really hard times when I’m tempted to throw in the towel, I can’t.  I literally can’t.  Because I remember all the times I threw in the towel before…and what that did…and how it made me feel.  I can’t do it.  I have to push through it, even if I’m in a pissy mood for a while.

So this catalog hit me at just the right time, don’t you think?  LOL

I have faith that the scale will move and that my somewhat sour-puss mood will perk up.  But just for tonight I needed to whine and complain…and the Catalog of Horrors allowed me to do so.  Now wear are my forever lazy jeggings?  It’s time for bed.  🙂

Nite y’all!


$20 Off the First Order

Wardrobe Weary On a Road Well Traveled

Battle of the Butt, Weigh In Time, , , , , , , , , , , ,

My closet is a ghost town: a myriad of tops and faded jeans all neatly lined up and abandoned.  There are very few clothes in my closet that I can actually wear right now, thanks to my stubborn insistence that I not buy another piece of clothing until I drop a size.  I live in a world of elastic waistbands and frumpy, wide-width shoes. Fashion is not my friend.  Fashion is a word I can’t even relate to anymore.

I didn’t realize it until this week, but I have been avoiding my closet.  I’ve made a lot of big changes in my life in a relatively short amount of time:  I gave up sugar, diet soda, stopped thinking of healthy eating as a drag, and put an indefinite HOLD status on my plans to have lap band surgery.  It’s only been 6 weeks. These changes are still in their infancy – and, with over 20 years of yo-yo dieting under my belt, I guess it’s only natural for me to shy away from anything that might derail the motivation train.  My resolve is precious to me.  Who hasn’t given up on a “diet” within the first days and weeks of starting it?  I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve thrown my hands up and reached for the chips.  My resolve is something that must be protected and gently nurtured.  This is why I’ve been avoiding my closet and all those clothes I can’t wear.

My closet makes me feel like a failure – and yet I choose to stubbornly cling to a hundred hangers worth of memories.  I decided to stop avoiding it this week.  Time to grab the bull by the horns.  Just two steps in and I was surrounded by a half dozen different sizes.  All of them were judging me.

As I organized and sorted, my hands flipped past t-shirts and non-tunics galore.  I remembered the times I wore these clothes – times when the number on the scale was not nearly as shameful as it is now.  I weighed a lot less then, but I was never able to let myself be happy with where I was.  I may have been a lot smaller, but I remember I always felt just as huge as the day I hit my highest weight.

Then I saw it: the first leather jacket I ever bought myself.  It’s a size 22 – which is still plus sized, but 10 sizes smaller than where I am today.  I can’t part with it.  Every time I see it, I’m reminded of the first time I saw it in the store.  I had lost 75 pounds, but I was on the small end of a size 24 and wasn’t sure it would fit me.  I’ll never forget the triumphant feel of slipping that jacket on.  Perfect fit.

I stood in my closet, smiling at the memory of it, but the smile faded within just a few seconds.  I know all too well what happened next and my moment of joy was replaced with shame & disappointment.  Just a few months later, I started another downward spiral and I gave up on myself.  Again.

Having never been able to give myself credit for the accomplishment of losing 75 pounds, I was still berating myself for being 295 pounds (my top weight at the time) – even though I hadn’t weighed that much in months.  I call that kind of negative, automatic thinking my “auto-pilot”.  I didn’t even know I was doing it until my attitude hit the skids.  I tried to pick myself up with a pep talk.  “Hey!  I do NOT weigh 295 pounds!  I’m kicking ass!!”  I tried to believe in myself, but I never felt it in my heart.  It made me vulnerable in ways I couldn’t see.

While at my most vulnerable, I was unprepared for the jerk parade that ensued when I started dating again.  It only took a couple douche bags to break me down.  It wasn’t long before I started finding excuse after excuse not to work out.  Fast food was suddenly more convenient.  Ice cream was back in the freezer.  That bitch Little Debbie was back in my life.  It was easier to curl up on the couch with a plate full of pizza rolls and let the world outside go by than it was for me to look at what went wrong and try again.  By the time I stepped on the scale again, I was 299 pounds.  All the way back up to my top weight with 4 pounds extra.  Nice job.

The leather jacket in my closet is a symbol of the good times on the road to weight loss and the pitfalls that await me if I make the same mistakes.  In some ways, it might be better if I just gave it to charity.  I can’t.  Not until I can wear it again.  When I slip that jacket on my shoulders again and I feel in my heart that I am a Hot Mess Bad Ass, then I can let it go.  That’s the way it is with all the clothes in my ghost town closet.  There is peace to be made.  Retribution.

It’s going to be difficult for a while.  Auto-pilot is hard to fight when I have no physical reminder that I’ve lost weight.  An obese person can’t see or feel a loss of 5, 10, or even 20 pounds.  It doesn’t make much of a dent.  Pants don’t feel looser when they have elastic waists.  It makes it a lot harder to stay positive when you’re able to wear the same pair of pants through pounds and pounds of weight loss.  I don’t expect to be able to wear the next size down for at least another 10 or 15 pounds. The scale and the tape measure are my only real tools for measuring my success – at least for a while.

Just a few days ago, I caught myself on auto-pilot again.  I sat down in my chair at work and thought to myself “I can’t believe I weigh 381 pounds…”

Here I go again, right?  I don’t weigh 381 pounds.  I weigh 361 pounds.

That’s right, peeps:  I’ve lost more marbles since my last post!  I’ve lost 20 pounds since December 15th, 2011.  Why do I have such a problem acknowledging my own success?

That’s why I left myself this note on my monitor at work the other day:

 

 

Of course, now I’m going to have to put a new note up there:  361.  What a horrible inconvenience to have to keep rewriting these notes, right?  🙂

I was so excited to see 361 blinking back at me from the scale this morning.  I had to weigh myself three times before I would believe it, finally stepping back and muttering “shut UP!”  My groggy hubby, still in bed, rolled over and said “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to tell the scale to shut up, babe…”   Goober.

I’m two pounds away from the 350’s – which means I have two pounds more to lose before one of those little pink jewels go PLINK in the “Pounds Lost” jar.  It looks like I’m going to hit my next mini goal:  359 by Valentine’s day.

What’s my goal after that?  354.  Why?  Because I will no longer be able to say I have to lose over 200 pounds.  🙂  At 354 pounds, I will have 199 pounds more to lose.

Seems insurmountable, doesn’t it?  199 more pounds.  My God.  I’m here to tell ya:  I’m gonna do it.  I will kick every single pound squarely in the ass and send it packing.  Ten pounds at a time, they’re dust.  For me, success is no longer just hitting my goal weight.  Success is changing my life and earning my way.

So here I am:  a 361 pound success.  Proud and grateful.

 

 

Catalog of Horrors

General Hoo-Hah, , , , , , , ,

I’m inspired and motivated in my weight loss efforts by many things…

…my desire to ride a rollercoaster again

…my desire to be physically STRONG again

…my fear of having to be removed from my home by firefighters who have to cut through the side of my house to get me out, then load me on a flatbed truck and take me for a mandatory gastric bypass.

…and the simple joy of wearing beautiful clothes again

There aren’t a lot of fashion choices for those of us with multiple butts.  Truth.  In fact, using the word fashion to describe the choices available to women my size should be a crime.

I’m still clinging to my stubborn proclamation that I will not buy anymore clothes until I drop a size.  As such, my co-workers see me wearing the same thing week after week and my regular weekend uniform of workout pants and a t-shirt hasn’t changed since Bieber Fever first showed up.  It won’t always be this way, but for now…it is what it is.

Am I still curious as to what “fashion” choices are available to my fellow chubby girls and me?  Sure!!  It’s important for any chubby chick on the go to keep tabs on the current trends in “fashion” for the plus sized woman.  Naturally, when I get a catalog in the mail, I take time to peruse it…whilst eating my afternoon snack of healthy fruit and a small handful of almonds.  Tres chic.

I flip through the pages and try to ignore the fact that my blood pressure is skyrocketing as I see page after page of non plus sized models wearing these “fashions”.  By the time I’m hurling it into the trash can, I’m screaming.

I’ve had enough.  Really.  I’m so tired of the bullshit marketing that goes into these catalogs that I’ve decided to cut through it right here and now.  Let’s go through some of the real gems of the “fashion” catalog I just got in the mail and let’s dissect the real messages behind the bullshit marketing, shall we?

We’ll start with the cover.  What are they saying?  “We miss you, Dianne, since you bought those pants from us that shrank in the dryer and are now only fit for a 3 foot, 400 pound midget to wear!”

What are they really saying?


Hey, at least they’re honest now.  Let’s try another one, shall we?

Speaking of ugly shoes, what the hell is going on here?

I love it when stores name their stuff.  This model shoe is called the “Darling”.  So stylish…it’s the fat girl’s answer to Jimmy Choo.  Forget designer touches, ladies, these bad boys are precision stitched for extra support.  And the best part is they’re on sale.  Now you, too, can look just like Grandma on her way to an AARP meeting for only $44.99

Speaking of naming shit, how about this:

What decade did they pull this out of?  We’ll call this stylish little number the “Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver…so I’m covering it with yards of fabric!”

Let’s see what other bullshit I can cut through…

I love a good tunic, don’t you?  Actually…sadly…the tunic is a staple in my “fashion” wardrobe.  Just more motivation for me, though.  Someday my closet will be a TUNIC FREE ZONE!!!

Mmm…hmm.  I heard that, girlfriend!

This one really gets me going.  These jeans are a “tummy tamer”.  Look at the fatty who’s modeling them.  How many Twinkies does this chick eat?  Thank God for those hidden panels that shape her beautifully!  What a total cow.

By the way, someone should talk to her about her devil-may-care, thumb-in-her-back-pocket pose.  We chubby girls have to keep both feet firmly on the ground at all times…especially when we’re being controlled by hidden tummy tamer panels.

Nothing says “feel the burn” like getting your sweat-tunic caught in the rowing machine at the gym!

This last one is my favorite…

Wow.  I don’t know about you, but I’m buy’in what she’s sell’in!!  Look at all her hot, sexy mu-mu wearing friends, too!  They’re ALL feeling sexy in their mu-mu’s!!  I’ve gotta have one…I’ve gotta!

Why are they trying to bullshit us?  Do they think we’re so hopped up on carbs we won’t see through this crap?

At least Lane Bryant and the Avenue use models who wear their sizes.  Sure, they’re 14’s and 16’s…but they’re not trying to shove some size 4 model has-been in a denim mu-mu down my throat.  They’re realistic.

These idiot catalog companies would get a lot more respect from me if they’d at least be truthful.  Let’s face it:  when you weigh over 300 pounds like I do, a tunic really isn’t that slimming.  Nope.  My sick dependence on the almighty tunic is simply due to a sincere appreciation that it covers my multiple butts and my huge gut. That’s what a tunic really does.

Can we be honest?

I guess I’ll never have a career in “fashion”.

 

 

 

 

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