Beauty/Fashion

Last week, I got some coupons from JCPenney. $10 off $10 or more. (I thought they didn’t do coupons anymore, but I guess I haven’t clothes shopped in a while…) Anyway, I decided that this would be a good opportunity to get some clothes on the cheap. I’m having an itch to get some bright, spring-y clothes, so I was pretty excited to see what they had.

I wasn’t sure what to expect though. This was my first time looking through the misses section in years. I’m talking since the 1990s, y’all.

Here’s a small vent I have about plus size sections in stores. The misses section of a store could have a whole darn floor in a department store, but the plus size section is usually 20ish racks within that floor. Oh, and within that plus size section, about half of it is for a more mature customer. So, the choices were very limited. Also, being a larger size in the plus sizes meant just automatically go to the back of the rack, hoping they had a 3X available. This is why I always hated shopping. It was seriously boring and depressing.

This past weekend, my husband and I went to the mall, and I was really excited to shop. This really never happens, y’all. I get excited to shop for gifts, but for me? HA! After we went to a couple of stores, it was time to face the misses section. My husband grabbed the first XL tee off the shelf, and recommended that I just try it on to even see if it fit. Not only did it fit, but the blue color looked awesome on me. It was a simple V neck fitted tee, which was only $6. Um…seriously? Simple tees in plus sizes are almost twice as much!

So, not only am I dealing with more choices…I’m also getting cheaper clothes? Awesome.

On the way to the fitting room, I also grabbed this bright, spring-y casual blouse. I’m a big fan of aqua/teals, so this one just called to me. This one fit as well. 🙂 Gosh, I love the colors in this blouse SO much!

I wanted to grab one more top, and my husband saw this fitted polo type of shirt. I just grabbed the XL, and we were off to the register before I could cause more damage to my bank account LOL! We found these three tops in one small section of the misses department. As we were walking out of the store, I was just overwhelmed by all of the clothing choices and possibilities (as well as the prices….you mean a work top doesn’t have to cost $40??!). This is just crazy to me!

Here’s the new tops that I purchased. Don’t they just scream Spring?

Another purchase I made this weekend were these (my before size jeans are below these for a size comparison)…

Lane Bryant was having an additional 70% off clearance sale for one day (Friday). Since my work pants were getting droopy, I figured I’d try my luck. Not only did I find a pair of work pants (for just $12, too!), I also got some guts and purchased my first pair of skinny jeans. Not just any skinny jeans either….teal colored skinny jeans! I felt pretty gutsy with that purchase haha! 🙂 And can I mention how awesome it is to shop in the 14/16 side of the rack vs. the 24/26? Just AWESOME!

Another great bonus right now is that I’m now fitting my little sister’s (before) clothes. My younger sister, Rachel, has lost 40 lbs. WHILE ATTENDING COLLEGE…yeah…she’s awesome. I asked my sister if she ever gave away any of her clothes, and luckily, her closet at home was still pretty full. 🙂 So, I told her if there were any clothes she no longer fits in that she doesn’t want, I’d definitely appreciate them. While my sister is 8 years younger than me, she has a ton of professional type clothes, since she’s a music major and has recitals/auditions/etc. I seriously hit the jackpot with what her & Mom brought me this past week.

It seriously doubled my wardrobe, and made me realize I probably need to do another clean-out of clothes that are too big on me. 😛

Oh, and this is what I wore to the mall on Saturday. 🙂 The cardigan is one of those hand me ups. I love it…a simple grey cardigan with white polka dots! 🙂 Thanks sis (and Mom, of course, since she probably purchased most of it.)!  Some of the clothes are a smidge too small (and some are really small, since they included some size L tops), but I’m sure once this DietBet is over in March, most of these pieces will be part of my daily wardrobe. So awesome…my wallet totally appreciates it! 🙂

I’m so motivated right now! By the way, if you follow my Instagram, I’m sorry that I post a lot of weight loss related pictures. I’m worrying that it may be coming across as braggy. It’s more out of disbelief, I swear. I still can’t believe that this is all happening. 🙂

I was a pretty skinny child. My passion for making my parents chase me around the house and yard contributed to my physique back then. Sometime around 3rd grade, though, I started to realize I wasn’t normal. I was getting fat.

I have no idea how it happened, but I look at my (now) size 24 self and realize that I am considered morbidly obese. I remember back in school, the kids would make my last name rhyme with fat. Fat A-(insert second syllable) was my name through most of school. I remember in middle school, this kid on the bus spit on my jacket, because he felt I was too fat to be on “his” bus.

Sounds insane, but it really happened.

Another big example I remember was waiting at the bus stop one morning, and one of the kids took my gym bag (actually ended up ripping it because I wouldn’t let it go), rubbed it in dog poop and told me that PE class wouldn’t help me so I shouldn’t bother bringing the bag to school. Bullying sucks…I don’t wish this type of bullying on anyone.

When I reached college age, bullying stopped. Everyone was magically more mature, but it was then that I realized maturity did not equal a fair society. The first time I went to the mall with my college friend, we were buying clothes. I remember going into Hollister and getting stares. I was a size 20 at the time. I could barely walk around the racks, since they kept them close together. I remember just looking at the regular sized clothes (helping my friend out), and when my friend went in the dressing room, an employee at the store told me they don’t carry my size, but Lane Bryant probably does. Rude, no?

When I worked at Lane Bryant through college, I realized that not all customers that shop there embrace the plus size. One lady came to my register to buy a gift card around the holidays, and while I was ringing her up, she told her husband if she ever fits in this store, she would just die.

I’ve seen it all…stares at the gym, stares eating out at a restaurant with my husband, even stares at the workplace…it’s everywhere. Society frowns upon the obese.

However, underneath my current size 24 body, I just wish I could wear a sign saying, I’m a person just like you. I have perfect blood pressure, good cholesterol, and while I eat ice cream from time to time, I’m making efforts to change for the better.

I’m sure most of you have read the Marie Claire article about the issues with an author accepting “fatties”. This article made me so sad. I actually was starting to love Marie Claire, because of their plus sized fashionista, who was starting to make me embrace the fact that I can still feel “cute” in clothes. However, since publishing this article, I feel like this was a huge slap in the face to the very readers that they have been trying to empower.

So, for the first time in a long time, I wrote to an editor. I had to. I couldn’t believe this article was published.

Ms. Schweitzer,
 
I recently came across an article titled “Overweight Couples on TV”, and would like to know why something of this nature was published. The author states that she finds it displeasing just for an obese person to walk across a room, and as an obese person, I find this saddening. I also find it saddening that she does not consider herself “size-ist”. If you think less of a person because of their weight, then that is a blatant discrimination.
 
I’ve been a Marie Claire subscriber on/off for quite a few years, and I’m just shocked that a magazine which writes about how a woman should feel more self-worth, is now publishing this. Do you not realize how many readers you may have just offended and brought down a few levels?
 
It’s hard enough to read magazines with size 0 women plastered across the pages, but now, to read this makes me feel like I am less of a person–compared to a stumbling drunk as she stated.
 
I really hope you will consider your audience when you publish articles of this nature. I’m fairly sure you’ve lost quite a few readers in the long run over this.
 
Sincerely,
::insert actual name::

That article brought back all of the bullying. It brought back the self-conscious feelings of “I wonder how many people find me gross”. It hurt, and it wasn’t fair.

The author tried to make up for it with an update (making excuses with her prior eating disorders and her perception of fat), but of course, you can’t take back how you really feel.

So, thank you Maura Kelly…thank you for making me feel equivalent to  “a stumbling drunk” and a “heroin addict” (her words…not exaggerating). And thank you for making those hateful feelings against “fatties” seem OK to have by having them written in such a huge publication. You kind of suck.

How do you feel after reading this article?