Time to Clean Out the Closet — Round 1

Today I came to the real­iza­tion that it was time to do some­thing I have been putting off: I got a box, labeled it “fat clothes” and started lob­bing cloth­ing items into it.

Why would I want to put off doing that, you ask?

Because I’ve been down this road before. And I’ve had to go look­ing for the “fat clothes” box, dig those clothes out and start wear­ing them again when the weight went back on.

And I don’t want to go down that road again.

What brought me to the inescapable con­clu­sion that it is time to purge my closet? A cou­ple of things:

First, I under­took a search­ing, hon­est eval­u­a­tion of these pho­tos:¹

Take a close look at the jacket I’m wear­ing. First of all, can you tell that the shoul­der seams are over too far so that they are actu­ally hang­ing down on my arms? Because they are not in the proper posi­tion, it looks as though I’m slouch­ing some­what, but I’m not. You can see the extra fab­ric under my right arm and the line of the col­lar is falling too far down because it is just hang­ing loosely instead of fol­low­ing the body line correctly.

And take a good look around the mid-section. Can you tell that in the top photo I pulled the jacket together for the photo? You may not be able to dis­cern that the right side is pulled over past where it would ordi­nar­ily meet the but­ton on the left side because there is so much extra room in it and I am try­ing to con­ceal that fact for the camera.

Essen­tially, I look larger and dumpier in the pic­tures than I actu­ally am. If I were not wear­ing that baggy jacket, you would be able to see that I actu­ally do have a waist.

I’ve had to go look­ing for the “fat clothes” box, dig those clothes out and start wear­ing them again when the weight went back on.

And I don’t want to go down that road again.

Why do so many peo­ple who are over­weight think that they are con­ceal­ing their weight issue by wear­ing big, baggy clothes? The truth is: The oppo­site is true. We do our­selves a dis­ser­vice by wear­ing cloth­ing that is too big because we appear larger, not thin­ner, in clothes that do not fit properly.

Yes­ter­day, I went to the office in a pair of pants that I can pull all the way up under my armpits.² When the waist­band is posi­tioned cor­rectly, the crotch seam hits the mid­dle of my thighs and the pant legs are too wide and baggy. But I’ve con­tin­ued wear­ing them for many months now — I put them into the dryer on the high­est tem­per­a­ture so they would shrink as much as pos­si­ble — even though I knew that I shouldn’t because, unlike many of my other clothes, the elas­tic waist­band remains tight enough that they don’t slide down my hips when I walk.

How­ever, I have reached the point where they are decid­edly uncom­fort­able and I feel very self-conscious in them.

But it feels as though I am jinx­ing my new lifestyle by think­ing, must less typ­ing or actu­ally act­ing upon, those words.

I dis­cov­ered that Thea at Tales from the Scales broached this sub­ject recently:

So what’s in your closet? Did you answer clothes or did you answer sabo­teurs? Can you tell the dif­fer­ence? Am I mak­ing any sense at all or have you already stopped reading?

Let me explain. But wait, one more ques­tion. How many cloth­ing sizes do you have in your closet? Do you have cat­e­gories (fat clothes, skinny clothes, good clothes, etc)? … [I]f you have sev­eral sizes of clothes or more than one “weight cat­e­gory”, it’s time to clean house (or closet).

If you have clothes that are too big for you hang­ing in your closet, you need to get rid of them. That’s right. Toss ‘em. Noth­ing is a big­ger sabo­teur then think­ing there might ever be a time when you would need those clothes again. You are giv­ing your­self per­mis­sion to gain the weight back. And you are send­ing lit­tle sub­lim­i­nal mes­sages that you don’t believe in your­self enough to keep it off. So go get a big garbage bag and get rid of them. You can donate them to a local char­ity. You can sell them on Ebay. Heck, you can start a bon­fire with them if it will make you feel bet­ter. Just get rid of them.

…

Hold­ing on to clothes that don’t fit is just one more men­tal hur­dle that you need to cross on your road to weight loss. If they’re too big, they’re hold­ing you back.

Thea’s obser­va­tions are accu­rate and her advice is sound.

I am find­ing that being able to wear clothes that had become too small feels like get­ting reac­quainted with some old friends.

Today I wore a blouse to the office that I know is at least ten years old. How­ever, it has been at least seven or eight since it fit me. It is still in style³ and, in fact, I received a cou­ple of nice com­pli­ments on it. It fits per­fectly, as do the black pants I dis­cov­ered in the back of the closet. I had for­got­ten about them com­pletely … I think I only wore them two or three times before they got too tight. So I actu­ally wore a com­plete out­fit that fit prop­erly today.

That felt like an accom­plish­ment. My goal is to remem­ber that feel­ing and savor it dur­ing dif­fi­cult, chal­leng­ing moments.

The baggy black pants are in the box labeled “fat clothes.” They are going to stay there and when the box is full, Big­Bob is going to deliver it to the Good Will. The pink two-piece dress I am wear­ing in the Word­less Wednes­day photo is also in there, as is the black jacket dis­cussed here. This week­end, I’m going to spend some time pulling even more items out of the closet and fir­ing them into the box.

Purg­ing ill-fitting cloth­ing from one’s closet is good med­i­cine for the soul — and the waistline.

Track­posted to Perri Nelson’s Web­site, The Vir­tu­ous Repub­lic, Is It Just Me?, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, The Pop­ulist, The Unco­op­er­a­tive Radio Show! Aug. 07, 08 and 09, 2007, Shad­ows­cope, The Pet Haven Blog, Stuck On Stu­pid, The Amboy Times, third world county, Woman Honor Thy­self, 4 Time Father?, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Right Voices, Church and State, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Ran­dom Yak, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, Nuke’s News & Views, Weblog­gin, Cao’s Blog, Phastidio.net, The Bull­win­kle Blog, Con­ser­v­a­tive Cat, Jo’s Cafe, Fault­line USA, The Crazy Rants of Saman­tha Burns, The World Accord­ing to Carl, Blue Star Chron­i­cles, Gulf Coast Hur­ri­cane Tracker, Gone Hol­ly­wood, and OTB Sports, thanks to Link­fest Haven Deluxe.

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1. They were taken on June 28, 2007, and I have lost weight since then.
2. Big­Bob says I look like Urkel.
3. I gave up buy­ing trendy cloth­ing many years ago, so most of the clothes in my closet that I have not been able to wear for a num­ber of years are still in style.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Fem­i­nism, Weight Issues, Weight Man­age­ment

On the Same Topic:

• Read­ing Project: Fat is a Fem­i­nist Issue (Week One)
• Read­ing Project: Fat is a Fem­i­nist Issue
• The One Lie My Mother Told Me (Part Two)
• I Hate My Clothes
• Time to Shop