Little Black Dress Motivation

Thrift store shopping is one of my passions. I love to find great clothes cheap. And since they are cheap, I have no problem buying something fantastic in a size smaller than I am, hoping that it will fit at some point in the future.

A few weeks ago, I bought a really cute black summer halter dress. It was so tight that I could barely zip it and was afraid of ripping it when I did, but it was just too cute to pass up -- on the chance that I would be able to wear it someday.

When I found out that I'd be going to New Orleans last weekend, I knew the dress would be perfect for my trip if only I could fit into it. I suddenly had my weightloss motivation in the form of a little black dress.

Well, I am happy to report that I was able to wear the dress in New Orleans and, though it was just a tad snug in the ribcage, it was not at all too tight. I felt fabulous and in control. I want to remember that feeling, that little taste of success, to use as motivation always.

Celebrity Sizes

I don't know if it's entirely healthy to compare yourself to celebrities, size wise. But I know that I do it, and so do lots of other people, especially those of us who are trying to lose weight. There's a natural curiosity about those who are held up as "ideal" examples of beauty and body shape.

It's usually pretty difficult to know what clothing sizes celebrities wear (and dang nigh impossible to know how much they weigh). You can't necessarily trust what you read in the magazines and gossip websites. But one place to find out what size some celebrities are (or were at the time they wore a certain garment, at least) is www.clothesoffourbacks.org. It’s an auction site where clothes once wore by celebs are auctioned off for worthy causes.

I'm sure there's still variation in what the sizes mean, as I talked about in the last post, but it's still pretty interesting to "contrast and compare." For example, the one-shouldered red gown that Katherine Heigl wore to the Academy Awards ceremony in 2008 is listed on the auction site as a size "Custom 4," which sounds about right to me.

On the other hand, I was surprised to see that the emerald green gown Keira Knightley wore in the great film "Atonement" was a size 2. I would have guessed smaller, maybe a 0 or even a 00. She just seems a lot skinnier than a 2 to me and seems more than one size smaller than Katherine Heigl.

By the way, Keira's "Atonement" dress went for a whopping $46,000(!) while Katherine's Oscar dress garnered a high bid of $5,000, all for a good cause.

Good to Know

According to Nordstrom, the Designer Apparel sizes for the U.S. are:
Size 0: 31-23-33.5
Size 2: 32-24-34.5
Size 4: 33-25-35.5
Size 6: 34-26-36.5
Size 8: 35-27-37.5
Size 10: 36-28-38.5

Now, clothes at Wal-Mart, Old Navy, and the like definitely do not follow that guideline. It's a crap shoot what size you wear there. I have clothing in my closet ranging from size 6 to 10 that all fits.

What really irks me though, is the way clothing sizes have changed over my lifetime (at least in the U.S.). What used to be a 10 twenty or thirty years ago is a *LOT* smaller than what passes for those sizes now. I have some pants that I saved from high school that were a 10 back then and today I can't get in them at all, even though I can wear a 6 in some (OK, a few) new pants.

The marketing departments figured out that women like to fit into smaller sizes and that they'd get more sales and good word of mouth if they "relaxed" the sizing. (Relaxed = lied about.) It's another symptom of the fattening of America.

Apparel Angst

OK, I admit it: One reason I want to be thin is to wear more interesting clothes. And look good while doing so. (That last part is pretty important. It's entirely possible to be thin but, er, a tad TOO interesting, like Bai Ling here):



Let me just go ahead and come all the way out: I am a closet (no pun intended) fashion addict. I read gofugyourself.com daily. I watch Project Runway while on the treadmill. I pour over the photo sets from Fashion Week, especially the Couture shows. I haunt the local thrift stores to find creative clothing combos without spending much cash. This is all a HUGE change from when *I* was huge and hated, hated, hated, HATED shopping.

But today I had a seriously angst-y moment at the Goodwill Super Store. There was this dress, you see, this cute, clingy, interestingly orange dress. Just the kind I like. In a size "small." Make that in a size "too small."

It almost, but not quite, fit. Ten pounds from now, I will be able to wear it. But right now, it shows every morsel of food that has passed my lips and been added onto my belly in the last three weeks of less-than-stellar adherence to my fitness plan.

The dress could look great with the right necklace, the right shoes, and the RIGHT FREAKIN' BODY. None of which I have right now. But all of which I could have, may have, (dare I say, will have?) in the future.

I didn't buy the dress. But I'm going to keep an eye on it; if the Goodwill store has a half-price sale, it's mine. In the meantime, I'm using it for thinspiration.

An Unforeseen Danger of Weight Loss

For Christmas, I was given some long underwear. (Yeah, I know, you're thinking "Whoo-hoo, she must have been a very good girl," right?) Actually, it was very nice, thin, silky long underwear. The keyword there is silky; note that you can also translate that as slippery.

I found out about the slippery factor last night when I wore my long underwear under some jeans that are now just a little too large for me due to weight loss. Yes, you guessed it: I spent all evening in grave danger of my too-big jeans slip-sliding down over that silky-slick material and leaving me standing there in my underwear with my pants around my ankles.

Luckily, that did not happen, but only because I tugged up my jeans all night. Sigh. I did have a couple of close calls where there was possibly a gap in the back between shirt and jeans allowing a glimpse (or maybe an eyeful) of my unmentionables. Any people around with long underwear fetishes probably enjoyed themselves just a little too much!

Still, if I have to have problems, I would rather have the problem of keeping my pants on because I'm too small for them than the problem of not being able to get them on because I'm too big. :-)

Skinny State of Mind

One thing I'm going to do on this blog is offer weight loss tips that have helped me. Here's the first: I've found that to lose fat, I have to keep it in my consciousness, to be aware of it pretty much all the time; in other words, I have to stay in a skinny state of mind.

If I lose that focus, I find myself mindlessly eating.

To keep from doing that, I find that it helps to do things like look at photos of thin people for inspiration, think about the great fashions I can wear when I'm slimmer, plan what I eat in advance, and imagine getting compliments and positive attention for being slim.

Of course, sometimes just pinching myself at the waist and feeling that fat is enough to remind me to get back on track. ;-)