A Tale of Two Suits

A.K.A. DITCH THE OLD CLOTHES!

As you make progress towards your weight loss goals, you'll find your clothes don't feel as tight.  Yay!  You'll notice more than others.  Other people won't notice until you've lost some significant weight, like 10-20% of your bodyweight.  But that's ok.  There's an awkward in-between period where your old clothes will be too big, but since you're not to your goal weight either, it's not time to buy a whole new wardrobe.  What to do?  

Well, you need to start ditching the old threads.  There's some logic to doing that.  One, you're acknowledging that you're slimmer and can fit into smaller clothes.  Wearing smaller clothes will make you feel like you've made tangible progress.  The clothes will compliment your body better and yes, people will eventually start to notice (not that we're doing it for them, but it always helps to have someone notice your hard work).  Unless you're rich, you probably don't want to go out an buy a whole new smaller wardrobe yet, since you'll have to turn around in a few weeks and do it again.  I went to local thrift stores and started to buy smaller clothes.  I'll even admit to even going to department store or two and trying on smaller clothes and looking at myself in the mirror.  You can also get inexpensive clothes at yard sales, at stores like Wal-mart and Costco.  

About getting rid of your old clothes...if you keep them around, you're just telling yourself - "If I ever put the weight back on, I'll always have clothes that fit."  No, no, NO!!  Don't plan to fail.  Plan to win, once you've lost the weight, you're never going back.  Remember your commitment?  Make it simply too expensive to gain the weight back.  If you happen to gain a few pounds along the way and your smaller clothes get tight, that's a great reminder to kick it into high gear again and get back on track to your goal.

When you're close to your overall goal, that's the time to have more fun and start shopping around for nice, new clothes.  They don't need to be expensive - again, you can get great deals at stores like T.J. Max, Wal-mart, JC Penny, Macy's - especially when things are on clearance.  

I hadn't purchased or worn a polo shirt in like 15 years.  I tried one on one day and saw that it actually looked good on me.  When I got down close to my target weight, my wife went with me to a few stores and we bought more polos, jeans, T-shirts and even a new suit.  The last suit I purchased was at my daughter's wedding in May of 2013.  I remember going in to Macy's and looking at suits.  NONE of them fit.  They went up to size 52, I was about a size 56.  They didn't even have a Big & Tall section.  How discouraging!  I had to go to a Big & Tall store and they were more than happy to help me buy a nice new suit:

I thought to myself - is this how it's going to be?  Will I always need to shop in the special sections or at the special stores in the less-than-stylish clothes?  The pants size was 46.  A wedding picture with our whole family hangs in our family room, a constant reminder of how heavy I was.

Back to the new suit :-)  For Father's Day this year (June 2014) I went to a couple of suit stores.  I remember looking at a few different suits with a salesperson.  I asked about a specific kind of suit I saw that looked nice - he said "Those suits are for the more normal men with bellies, you'll want to stick to the more fitted suits."  Excuse me?  Me, wearing fitted suits?  I could have cried.  I tried it on, it fit without tailoring (besides the pant hems):

I got a new fitted shirt and a tie to go with it.  Honestly, my shoes are all feeling a bit loose these days too, but I stopped short of buying new shoes.  The new suit was a size 43 (down from the 56), the pants were a size 37 (down from the 46).  The shirt neck size was a 16 1/2, down from an 18 1/2.  
The old new suit from last year was sold on eBay.  I considered briefly keeping it to do one of those "See how much weight I've lost" kinds of pictures.  Haha, I do have an old pair of XL gym shorts I can use for that purpose.  Speaking of which, buy new gym clothes too!  You'll feel better working out in gym clothes that compliment your new, slimmer body.