Fashion Monday: Workout Clothes
Jan 25, 2010 Fashion, Weight Loss
Here’s what I do when I don’t want to do something: I convince myself I shouldn’t do that thing. Workout clothes are not something I want to spend money on right now. We’re redoing our kitchen, the kids keep stubbornly growing out of their clothes, our car is on its last legs (wheels?)…new workout clothes were pretty low on the list of potential purchases.
This morning I was doing my Your Shape workout, and I couldn’t help but notice how crappy I looked. You can’t hide from yourself with the Your Shape workout, because you’re right there on the TV, next to a buff, made-up, fashionably-dressed Jenny McCarthy avatar. And there I was, wearing black track pants that were too big six month ago, and now magically fitting again (sigh), and completely worn out. And I have a matching pair in gray, just as worn out.
On top I was wearing a green workout shirt that supposedly has a built-in “shelf” bra. I don’t know why I fall for that time and time again. I’m a 36D. There is no built-in shelf bra that will work for me. But I keep buying them anyway, and my boobs keep flopping around as I work out.
But, I had convinced myself that these things didn’t matter, that I was exercising privately so who cares what I look like?
Only, it does matter. Nobody needs to put on make-up and a $300 Juicy Couture track suit to work out, but when I look shlubby I feel shlubby. And when I feel shlubby I want to sit on the couch and eat potato chips and watch Cops.
This afternoon I received a very generous gift card to Lady Foot Locker for my participation in the Your Shape challenge, and I got myself two complete outfits – track pants, shirts, and sports bras (good ones, underwire). The pants are plain but the shirts are bright colors. I hate to admit that I’m affected by such silly things, it seems weak and shallow. But when I go to an event dressed in something I know I look good in, I feel more confident. Perhaps the first new work-out clothes I’ve bought in six or seven years will make me feel strong.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Your Shape
Fashion Monday: The Big Girls are Back
Jan 11, 2010 Fashion
I almost let today pass without commenting on something I saw last night. When “big girls” get highlighted in major media outlets, it’s news – perhaps someday it won’t be – and it’s happening again. There’s a beautiful spread in the new V magazine, filled with glamorous women who are not thin. Frankly they’re not fat either. They’re average – in size, anyway. They’re way above average in the beauty department, but that’s why they get to be in a magazine, glammed up and wearing big-name clothes.
I would certainly not be in favor of seeing ugly women in fashion magazines. This isn’t about some kind of equal-opportunity movement. We buy fashion magazines for certain reasons, and I know that I want to look at beautiful people – and I’m talking about outer beauty, folks. I love that larger women are being held up as glamorous. A stick-thin child with razor-sharp shoulderblades is not my idea of beautiful. Plus, if you’re trying to sell clothes – yes, big girls buy expensive clothes – I want to see how those clothes will look on someone curvy.
I just wonder how much photoshopping went on. It happens so extensively with thin models, you have to wonder how much cellulite was smoothed on these ladies. I almost hope it was a lot. I hate the cottage-cheese-like consistency of my thighs way more than I hate their size. If this group of women has somehow managed to have meat on their bones, gorgeous faces, and smooth thighs, then I’m officially insanely jealous. 
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: plus-sized models, V magazine
Fashion Monday: How not to wear a belt
Jan 4, 2010 Fashion
There are days when I leave the house thinking that I look fabulous, only to see myself later in a mirror or a picture and wonder “What the hell was I thinking?”
I have a blue dress that for a while I thought looked fantastic. I got it at Target for $25, wore it to a party at BlogHer in Chicago, and saw some fabulous pictures of me in the dress. Like these (that’s Jennie with me in the pics):
I thought I looked great. In each picture I’m leaning forward a bit, the lighting is flattering, and it basically only shows my top half.
I wore the dress to a wedding a couple months later. Again, looked great, I thought. That’s the bride, Amybeth, with me.
So, when I got an invite to Colin Cowie’s apartment, I threw on the blue dress that I look great in. I paired it with my most expensive shoes and left the house feeling fabulous.
A couple days later, this picture showed up on Facebook (thanks, Katja – next to me in the pic – for letting me use it here):
Holy hell.
I’m not going to claim that I would look fabulous in the dress with a different belt, but it would be a good start. When I met Alison Deyette a few months ago, she said something that I should have paid more attention to: if you buy something that comes with a matching fabric belt, throw it out immediately. Good advice, which I promise to follow from now on.
Up until recently, I thought that the only reason to wear a belt was to hold your pants up. But after Meg Gallagher came to my house and threw out most of my clothes, she told me to buy some big belts, so I did. I spend about $40 each on a brown one and a black one at Loehmann’s. If you’re looking for a way to spruce up your wardrobe without spending too much, especially if you’re trying to lose weight, a decent belt is a great thing to spend money on. It can grow smaller with you, and help define your shape instead of hiding it, like in this picture from last month:
Just don’t wear it like a woman at a party I went to not long ago. She was wearing a big sweater, and a beautiful big black belt. But she was wearing it under her big belly. The belt was getting crushed, and it made her belly look even bigger (and for some reason made her look a little bit like a pirate). Oops.
And most importantly, look in a full-length mirror before you leave the house.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 5. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Alison Deyette, belts, Loehmann's, Meg Gallagher
Fashion Monday: Fat girl styling
Dec 7, 2009 Fashion, Product Review
More Fashion Help
In last week’s edition of Fashion Monday I wrote about how a stylist, Meg, came to my house and made me get rid of most of my clothes. And I did get rid of them. Well, almost all of them. After Meg left I pulled two pieces out that I couldn’t bear to get rid of. Neither of them had been worn in public, ever. They were both impulse purchases. The first, a crocheted sweater-type thing, I had bought in college. I remember having no money and no clothes but for some reason I spent $35 on this thing that of course I never wore. Even when I was thin I would try it on with a tank top and stretch pants under it and still it looked awful. The length was all wrong, it had a horrible V-neck that went down almost to my belly-button…just awful. The second was a red and gold skirt that I thought looked good in the store, and it was a great deal (my weakness) so it went home with me and sat with the tags on for years. I brought both of these to an event hosted by fashion expert Alison Deyette, hoping that she could tell me how to wear them, or if I even should. I didn’t want to second-guess Meg; I thought of it as more of a second opinion, like if I had been diagnosed with a horrible disease and was hoping another doctor would give me better news. Or put me out of my misery.
Alison was pretty brutal with the sweater. There was no hope for it and I was to toss it immediately (actually, I think it could probably make some nice doilies, but I don’t have the skill so it went to the Salvation Army). The skirt she had a little more hope for. She said that its main problem was length, that if I could get it hemmed a little above the knee it could work. Of course, I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet, but at least now there’s a reason for the skirt to still be in my house.
Skirt length was something that Meg and I had talked about as well. I tend to go for long, straight skirts that hide my fat calves. As many overweight women do, I often fall into the trap of thinking that the more I cover the better I look. But for reasons I still don’t quite get, it just doesn’t work that way. Meg recommended lots of knee-length skirts and tall boots for winter, since the skirts would probably be a little more forgiving during weight loss than pants. Of course, finding boots that fit my calves was a whole other problem, but I’ll save that for another post.
What To Buy When Losing Weight
What clothes to buy during weight loss is a big issue for me. I hate spending money on things I know I’m not going to use for very long, and that’s exactly what I’m doing when I buy clothes that fit me now. I don’t want to be able to wear them for very long, I want them to get baggy quickly. So what to buy? I interviewed Alison a couple of weeks after the event, and she had some great advice about what clothes are worth spending money on when you don’t anticipate being in that size for very long. She had some other great fashion advice as well, and also talked about a new video game for Nintendo DS that came out recently, called Style Savvy.
Alison’s essential pieces to buy when you’re losing weight:
- black pants with a little stretch
- trouser jeans
- button-down shirts with a little stretch
- a really good trench coat with a removable liner
Alison’s style advice if you’re overweight:
- Avoid clothes that are too tight or too over-sized
- Dress for your body type
- Pay attention to what you’re wearing under your clothes – a good bra can slim you instantly
- If you have larger breasts, don’t wear crew-necks; wear V-necks and scoop-necks (but not cut too low)
- Camouflage with jewelry: larger women shouldn’t wear very delicate or small pieces, and no chokers; you want the eye to move up-and-down
video management, video solution, video streaming
The Style Savvy Game
I was sent the Style Savvy game to try (and a Nintendo DS to try it on), and while it wasn’t my cup of tea (um, I mean, my can of diet pop), I could see some budding fashionistas digging it. I can especially see tween girls using the multi-player options to judge each other’s fashions and visit each other’s boutiques. For me, getting dressed and trying to look stylish is a chore. Maybe once I’m more comfortable with my own style I’ll enjoy playing a video game based on style.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has Compensation Levels of 1 and 5. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Alison Deyette, Nintendo DS, Style Savvy
Fashion Monday. That’s right, I said fashion.
Dec 1, 2009 Fashion
The Bloodbath
If you had told me a few months ago that I would want to write a post about fashion – fashion and me, that is – I would have said you were crazy and would have shown you my closet. Because it was filled with cheap, ill-fitting crap that made me look ten pounds heavier or like a time traveler from the early 90s. Or both.
But now my closet looks a bit better. It still needs tons of work, but now there’s hope. It all started with what I call The Bloodbath. I had won a three hour wardrobe consultation at a school auction, and then the person giving the consultation – a fashionista mom from my ‘hood named Meg Gallagher – moved to California. Which worked out great for me, because I figured that by the next time she saw me I’d be a size 8 and we could do some serious work.
She came back for a week a few months later and I was, of course, roughly the same weight as when she left. But I wasn’t sure when she’d be in NYC next so I let her came over, and the consultation began easily enough. She asked me a bunch of questions about my lifestyle (lazy), my buying habits (terrible) and my personal sense of style (non-existent). Then I tried on my clothes. All of them. In 2.5 hours I tried on everything in my closet, with the exception of a few items that were so hideous she didn’t even need to see them on me. 80% of it went into a heap to be given away/thrown out/burned. I grabbed a few of the comfiest items back, swearing to her that I would only wear them around the house. But the rest went. I looked at the huge pile and thought about all of the money I had wasted on those clothes. Some had never been worn. How the hell did I end up with so many clothes and so little to wear?
What kills me is that I knew what she was going to hate and why, most of the time. But I had to bring someone else into my closet and make me throw the junk out. I never would have done it without her standing there telling me it had to be done.
How it happened
I’m cheap. You’d never know it from my spending habits but I’m cheap. It’s not what I pay for things that matter to me, it’s how good a deal I’m getting on the item. It doesn’t matter if it looks terrible on me and I’ll never wear it: if it’s 90% off and I can button or zip it, it leaves the store with me. I’ve been doing that for decades, in every size from 6 to 18. And spending money on a fashion consultant? Why in the world would I waste money on that? That’s for rich people. If you need me I’ll be elbow deep in the clearance rack at Old Navy.
But if, 15 or so years ago, I had gone shopping with a personal shopper or hired a consultant, I would have ended up spending far less in the long run and looking much better. I don’t know when exactly I was supposed to learn how to put together an outfit, but it never happened. So, while Meg was with me, I paid attention to what she was making me throw out. The things she let me keep weren’t exactly great items, but she couldn’t leave me naked so she had to let me keep something. Before she left she impressed upon me the importance of layering, of belts, and of colors, three things I had never paid attention to before at all.
Shopping smarter
In the couple months that have passed I’ve been slowly building my wardrobe back up. Apparently, I’m a fall. I’ve been buying sweaters and shirts in earth tones. And I invested in a couple of good belts, big ones that I can use with big sweaters so that I don’t look like I’m being tented for termites. And most importantly, every time I’ve gone shopping I’ve only purchased things that I want to wear, right then. No more leaving a store with a bunch of “great deals” that will hang in my closet with the (severely reduced) tags on. I’ve purchased some jewelry, something I never used to do. And I haven’t spent a lot of money, either. I’m still looking for deals, but only after I determine if the look is right for me.
You still won’t find me at Bryant Park, but at least now I can look halfway decent. Meg recently sent me a shopping list, so that’s my next project.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
