From: anita@ut-emx.uucp (Anita Cochran)
Newsgroups: alt.support.diet
Subject: The trauma of buying clothes
Date: 6 Nov 92 00:58:00 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

Like others who read this group, I am overweight and not making progress
towards changing that.  I had lost 45 pounds (most of which I gained
when my metabolism changed at age 30) over a 2 year period ending
3 years ago and at that point I bought new clothes and had old
ones altered.  Well, I slowly regained about 20 pounds and held
that weight until my life got super-stressful (very sick father needing
heart surgery last October) and I quickly gained 20-25 more.  So, back
to square one.  But, many of my clothes didn't fit or had to be let out
and that was quite depressing.  Now I am back in a syndrome I was in
at the top of my weight.  I need clothes, but I hate to shop for them.
I pick things out in what I think is my size and go into the fitting room.
First, I am faced with having to stare at my unclothed body in the mirror.
And that makes me unhappy.  Then, things seldom fit and look the way I
want them to look.  Most times I end up getting little or nothing and
leaving the store feeling totally depressed.  Then I have troubles
getting dressed in the morning because I am bored with the few clothes
that fit.

I have combatted this somewhat by using the Land's End catalogue since
I can get styles I know and they cut things generously (which some people
have complained about so they are changing back more towards slim -- sigh).
But once you own the same shirt or pants in every color they make that you
can stand, what then?

Another place I feel frustrated is in gym clothes.  I have a really good
exercise program going (at least I am doing that right) and went to
the sports store to get some gym shorts.  They are unisex and I ended up
taking a large and the shorts are snug in the legs and not that comfortable.
So I went to get another pair of more giving material.  The large didn't
work at all.  Do you know how depressing this is for a woman?  I mean,
what do large guys wear if I can't make it into a men's large?
Well, by accident I wandered to another part of the store and saw
women's running clothes and they had the same brand gym shorts in women's
and I decided to try them.  I took in a large and extra large (after all
men's large hadn't worked) and was shocked when large fit with extra
room.  I compared the men's and women's and discovered that the women's
had several extra inches in the hips and legs!  I even showed it to
the store clerk who had declared there was no difference.  But subsequent
trips to the same sports store shows they did not learn since they now
claim that all gym short are uni-sex and do not carry the women's model.
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL SEXES!

I guess there is no real moral to this post other than I went to the store
today and was once more frustrated.  I just thought others probably
would want to know that buying clothes is frustrating for other 
overweight people too.
-- 
Anita Cochran   arpa:  anita@astro.as.utexas.edu  
                       anita@binkley.as.utexas.edu  
                snail: Astronomy Dept., The Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712
                at&t:  (512) 471-1471