Color Me Fit: weight loss, fitness, exercise

This is a sore spot, clothing. What’s worse is that it’s just as sore a spot whether we are slightly overweight, with many kilograms to shed, or just non-conform to the generally accepted canon (which, oddly enough, constitutes a minority of the population in our Western countries). So, clothing? A Chinese puzzle at times, when it comes to figuring out what to wear, and above all - where to buy it!

Much to my happiness, I recently was able to fit into a clothing size I hadn’t been able to wear since I was 11 at best. It felt both exciting and very weird. Exciting, because I could finally say, after 15 years and having reached my adult size for long, “I can wear a 38/40 size!” (that’s a 8/10 US). Weird, because until recently, the 38/40 size was, to my eyes, “the size normal people wear”, and given that it now fits but I’m still overweight, I realized that it’s not “my” normal size (I’m pretty small, that’s why). The satisfaction of being able to wear it wasn’t erased by this, and only strengthened my resolve to get there someday. However, this reminded me of many, many things regarding clothing. We, the “not-thin people”, really don’t have it easy when it comes to this.

My own mother did have a tendency to pile on pounds with each passing year, especially after two pregnancies, so she was always up to date with mail-order selling catalogues in order to get clothes; there weren’t many other choices, of course, as it was clearly impossible to find anything that’d fit in the regular town stores, and those that were carrying some also sold them at awfully expensive prices. We had it easier with catalogues; some of them tended to cut their sizes a little wider than normal, some carried the largest sizes, and it was way less discouraging than trying to fit in some trendy stuff in a store that would anyway not fit at all.

Since that time, I think I’ve always had a somewhat ambiguous relationship with clothes. If I was lucky, I could happen to find suitable clothes in town stores, albeit not all of them; I was delighted, then, because it gave me the feeling that I “wasn’t that fat”, and that there was still hope for me to one day wear the clothes I really wanted to wear. I would also always clash with my mother on what she thought would suit me, and what I wanted to wear, and I’m not convinced that this was just your average teenage rebellion, because it’s about beliefs I still have today. She kept on saying that I shouldn’t try to wear clothes that were even only remotely snuggy, that I should pick the “comfort cut” jeans, things like that - except that large T-Shirts were making me look fatter, hiding the very few curves that deserved to be shown in my upper body, and that “comfort-cut” jeans were making my bottom look twice larger as it really was. This was an endless series of skirmishes, evidently, as I’ve been overweight through all my childhood until now.

Looking back to it, I realize that this reaction of mine probably contained a part of rebellion no matter what, although not necessarily against parents choosing my clothes (every girl hates that, I’ll wager): I was also miffed at the conception that “being fat” necessarily involved hiding myself in extra-large clothes, screaming to the world “I wear sacks because I’m ashamed of myself”. Well, I wasn’t. I’m not. I had this degree of self-conscience that made me avoid clothes in which I’d really look awful (low-waist trousers are indeed not a very good choice when my stomach is clearly bulging all over the waistband), but not enough to purposely hide my breasts (they’re big, might as well wear tops with nice, enhancing collars, no?), my back or my arms under large sleeves. Truth be told, I’ve never been able to abide to this idea, and I know that I’m lucky in that I’ve never had to resort to the bigger sizes, the ones that are really not nicely cut; nevertheless, I remain miffed at the thought that there’s barely any middle-ground between “an overweight person wouldn’t look terribly good in some kind of clothes” and “an overweight person must dress either like a clown or in dark, dull colors all the time”.

Aren’t clothing matters such a mess, really. I bet that even once I reach my target weight and can be considered as “normal” too, I’ll still have a hard time finding clothes that fit completely, due to my naturally large hips. Perhaps I should add “graze my bones” to the list of things to do?

- Kery