on losing weight: fashion + clothes (etc)

What I want to talk about today is clothes. I used to post a bit of fashion-related stuff on my blog, back in the day, but as I've got older, I've found that I care less about what I wear, in general, as long as it's clean..

Finding clothes to fit me is something I think I'll always struggle with - as I'm not your average size, height-wise. I was talking to my brothers girlfriend recently, she's much slimmer than me, but we're about the same height, and she struggles to find trousers to fit her properly, so much so that she makes her own. So, I can't see my struggles improving in that department...

But recently since I've been losing weight, I've started caring again about what I wear. I'm not going to go crazy and buy all the clothes you see in Topshop because I'm really not that 'on trend', but I've got really into basics (exciting, I know). For example, I never used to wear jeans, now I'm on the hunt for a really good pair of them. (I was so pissed when I found out Topshop had replaced GAP in my local mall!)

Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. I thought I'd talk about the pros and cons of finding clothes to wear - post-weight-loss.

THE BAD:

• Buying clothes in the middle of your weight-loss journey is an awkward one. Back in May/June I bought a lot of new clothes. I'd lost a lot of weight, it was my birthday, I want to look nice, etc. I got several pairs of new jeans, a few dresses.. I'm now almost 40lbs lighter. Just over a month ago, I got a new pair of jeans (a cheap pair from F+F as I'd learnt my lesson this time around) and, you've guessed it, they're too big now. I mean thats exciting, but it's not cheap. Be smart, if you think you're going to be losing more weight, wait. It'll save you money in the long run. 
• Finding your current wardrobe doesn't suit you anymore is tricky, too. I used to be a fan of oversized baggy everything, hiding all my stomach and my arms and my thighs and anything that I didn't like. Now that I'm a bit more confident, all those clothes swamp me, and I look the same size I did before. It's a shame, one of my old-favourite shirts is just unwearable because it's too big now.
• On a similar theme, re-learning my ~personal style~ is something I am still doing. I used to try and cover up everything I hated, but now I am happy wearing things a bit more close-fitting, but I'm not really sure what. I can't give you many pointers here, because I'm still in the midst of it, but I'm hoping that I'll get better along the way.

THE GOOD:

• Finding little things about your new body that look good in clothes, is one of my recent favourite things. After trying on thousands of pairs of jeans, I've found that some make my bum look pretty good. And then I stop and think about that thought, that shit, my bum can look good in jeans. 
• Whilst trying to figure out your new style is difficult, it can also be really fun. Clothes that you thought weren't options for you are now suddenly available, which is really fucking fun. I've been trying on all manner of random clothes when I go out shopping these days, to get an idea of what I like and what I don't like.
• It's really amazing to be able to walk into a regular clothing store and know you'll find your size. (Well, most of the time that is. I was in a New Look the other week and found they didn't stock in-store above a size 12, what the fuck is that about, New Look?) 
• Feeling more confident, generally. I spend a lot less time worrying about whether my shirt is too tight and clinging to bits I don't want, etc, because theres less bits that I don't want on show. It's exhausting, worrying about things like that constantly, and it's mad how much energy it takes up. 
• Caring less generally, about what people think of my fashion choices, too. I used to worry that people were thinking if I wore a certain item of clothing (how dare that fat girl wear leggings, leggings are not for fat people, for example, is something I overheard once). I think this comes with growing up and giving zero fucks about life, also.

This doesn't mean that I don't have tantrums about clothes not fitting, like any other human being (well, mostly the women, I suppose) out there but things are improving for me..

All other On Losing Weight articles can be found here!

goodbyes

eileen & anne 

I wanted to say that I felt very sad, this week, that I didn't know you better, Grandma, and I know the distance between our homes was not an excuse. I realised today that I did know you well, in that you helped shape my mum, and you made her into the amazing lady she is today...You were a very interesting woman who I got to know through how your raised my mum and how she raised me (I wouldn't know how to knit if it wasn't for you, or bake, or cook or sew, as these are things she learnt from you). I'll remember your handwriting in my recipe books and the things you knit for us, the jewellery I wear, the handbags I carry, and the memory of you letting me play with your cat figurines every time we visited.. I am glad you're no longer in pain, and are at peace, you were very missed today, and always will be.

x

missing in action

Just a short update to say that U+T will be a bit up and down until further notice, due to the passing away of a family member. Hopefully I'll be back soon, posts just may be a little sporadic in the meantime, please bear with me until then. I have some things scheduled, so I'll still be popping up on your feed, but if you need to reach me, the best way is via Twitter or email. 

Thank-you x

on losing weight: compliments, self worth + other people

Listening to others is hard, generally, but harder when you're trying to do something for yourself, and for you only. When people compliment me on my weight-loss, I face a tricky dilemma, because on one hand, I want to take their compliments and show them off to everyone like a shiny little badge of honour - when someone tells me I look like I've lost weight I want to jump up and down, sometimes, I want to shout to everyone "LOOK, LOOK AT ME, I CAN DO THIS!"

But then I have a little think, a split second to remember that this is exactly what causes the problem anyway, this problem of worrying what other people think, I've placed too much importance on what every passing stranger thinks.

So, internally, I am trying to get away from that happiness that is caused by other peoples compliments (and in turn, their insults). In my head, in these situations, you have two choices; engage, or disengage.

Disengaging yourself from the conversation is a tricky one. There are situations where it's awkward to bluntly lay it out, like, "This is none of your business." At work, for example, you might have to see people all the time, so you can't tell them to fuck off, no matter how much you may want to! A polite smile, nod, and a change of conversation is generally the best course of action, in my book. I am well practised these days at the fine art of changing the subject, and evading the question, but if it keeps my health (physically and mentally) intact, I'm not afraid to do it.

If they push, have a well rehearsed answer. I get the "So how did you do it?" quite a lot, and its human curiosity (and stupidity?), I suppose. If they are that awful kind of person that won't take a hint (we all know one of those) then don't be afraid to say, "Sorry, I'd rather not talk about it." There is a woman I work with who brings up "just how fat I was" everytime I bump into her. It's a shitty thing for her to do, but she's a shitty person. I'm getting better with the sarcastic comebacks, as apparently, it's how she gets a fucking clue.

There are also those people that make comments on what you're eating/your weight/whatever they feel like taking shots at that day. As a rule, I don't ever engage with these people. I think they're dicks, straight up. Generally, it is never your place to comment on how much or how little someone is eating, as you don't know their personal situation and you're probably not their doctor - if this is you, stop it! I'm still pretty overweight, yes, but occasionally I allow myself treats, it's not a criminal act, but you wouldn't know it from the looks I got digging into a burger and chips in Bill's the other week..

On the other hand, engaging is a can of worms in itself, but I have a few main questions I ask myself, when someone says, "Wow, have you lost some weight?"

Do I trust them? Generally, this is my first thought. A starting point, a place to work from is your relationship with that person in the first place. I have a list of people in my head (lol, issues, I know) of people I know I can talk to about my weight loss. They might not be the best of friends, or people that I've known for that long (or they might be) - some of them are family, and some of those people I definitely don't trust are family. You know, deep down, whether you can have a frank conversation about the struggles of losing weight, or whether you think a compliment is genuine, or not, so trust that gut instinct.

Am I in the right place mentally to discuss this today? The second thing I have to consider is my general mood. Some days, I just cannot entertain that conversation, simply put. I might have lost two pounds that week, and still not be in a good place to discuss it. If I am feeling like this, you have to have the strength to just shut that conversation down. On one of my darker days (weeks/months!) I cannot talk about it. I might still have gone to the gym that day or eaten healthily, but regardless, I cannot look outside that bubble I'm in to see my progress, and having to fake-smile a way through a conversation about 'how good you look, now' is a hard thing to do. I'll obsess over the details, like if they said now, what does that mean? Like I looked shit before? It's just asking for trouble, in my book.

What are my boundaries? This is obviously different for everyone, and even for me, they differ from person to person that I know. With most people, I cannot talk numbers. I can say I've lost five and half stone, but I can't say what my highest weight is, or where I want to be - mostly because these are triggers for me, so I steer clear of talking about that with pretty much anyone.

Obviously, this could all seem very over the top for people that don't have these kind of mental triggers - but even if you don't I hope you understand where I'm coming from! Everything is a learning curve, but I am slowly learning to separate my self-worth from other peoples opinions of me. I don't want a bad day to be because some random fucking person thought I looked fat. I don't want to cause a binge because someone thought I ate too much. On the flipside of that, I also don't want to only feel good about myself when someone tosses me a compliment like a scrap to a dog - I don't think that is a healthy way to live!

All other On Losing Weight articles can be found here!

on losing weight

I've been mulling over the decision to talk about my weight-loss on U+T. I've mentioned it here and there, and have had a few questions about it on Twitter, so thought I would write a bit of an introduction. I guess it's mostly for myself, but I want to write more about this part of my life on my blog, and I wanted to make it clear that this hasn't been an easy ride. I think a lot of the blogs and articles I read want everything to look like some beautifully curated Pinterest photos of healthy food (I admit, I'm guilty of that too) - but mental illness and struggles with food can often go hand in hand, and although the extreme end of eating disorders (like anorexia and bulimia) are often talked about, other kinds of eating problems are glossed over (particularly if you are anything but underweight). I still walk a fine line between happy and depressed, between obsessing over food and being aware that you need to eat healthily, and that's something I'll always have to deal with.
So that all said, take everything I say from here out with a big pinch of salt - I am no expert, obviously.. I'd also like to ask you to be respectful in the comments (if you decide to read this mammoth post and comment) as I know weight can upset people easily.

+ + +

I think in order to understand how I got to be the weight that I was, I have to explain that I've always had a strange relationship with my body. It's always been an other to me. It was something other people talked about, made fun of, or touched (whether I wanted them to, or not) and I just never felt like it was a part of me. When you are a young teenager and you are very sad all of the time, you spend a lot of time with other people discussing you as though you're not there. Your body and your mind become this thing that is everyone's business and suddenly the only thing you will always have, your body, becomes something public, that doesn't belong to you any longer. Because you are so young and desperately sad, your choices are taken away from you, and you don't get to have a say in it anymore, because other people know what is best for you. (It's not that I regret the things other people decided for me, I can definitively say that I would not be here today if it wasn't for the actions of my parents and doctors - however, these are thing you only appreciate in hindsight, ten years later.)

I think that because I went through a hard time when I was a young teenager - in the years when you begin to understand things about yourself - that gave me a strange relationship with food, and eating. When I was younger and some difficult things happened - I thought it was because I was too fat, that those things might not have happened if I were thinner. I stopped eating for periods (a very, very, very stupid thing to do) and would binge on junk-food when I was alone - like it made it okay if no-one else saw me do it. I did a lot of silly things at that time of my life: to put it simply, I could control what went in and out of my mouth and I could control pain, when I couldn't control anything else around me.

I got a bit better, mentally, after a few long and hard years, and my eating returned to 'normal'. It wasn't healthy eating, but I didn't really care, because I was having fun, being at art college and in my first year of university where everyone was sort of crazy anyway so I didn't feel so singled out. It wasn't my little sixth-form where everyone knew everyone and everyone knew me as the girl that cried all the time. And at that time, I wasn't in full-time therapy, I was off-meds for some of it, and I sort of didn't give a shit. I lost a bit of weight at first, but then I began to go the other way, embracing the fact I was bigger, starting not giving a fuck and following all sorts of amazing bloggers, like Gabifresh, Franceta Johnson and Nicolette Mason, fell head over heels for the body-positive movement that was happening.

Then things began to sort of fall apart at university, realising that I hadn't put my trust in the wrong people, I did stupid things again, I needed therapy again, I was on medication again.. After a particular horrible incident - when I was crying over the fact a pathetic man had called me fat - I realised that I was okay with being fat; I even blogged about it. I wasn't upset because he thought I was fat, I was upset that fat was the insult he was attempting to degrade me with - not unintelligent or shallow or arrogant or anything that I would've been more insulted to be called. But fat - like the most insulting thing is how much I weigh, not what I am like as a person. It was just, pathetic, pretty much, and that is still what I think about people that use that as an insult.

That was such a pivotal moment: it was like thinking for my entire life that being skinny would be the thing that would make me a better person, that being thinner would somehow cure all the emotional baggage I had, hoped it would cure my depression. In the back of my head I would always hear a voice saying: that boy did those horrible things because you're fat, you didn't get that job because you're fat, you failed those exams because you're fat. It's vicious, and horrible, and I know everyone feels like this occasionally, but this was like a mantra that I lived by until suddenly, one morning in a quite art studio at university, I realised that nothing I thought about being fat was true.

So for a while after university, I completely stopped caring. I was fat, and so what, I still got shit done and lived my life. It was like, the biggest weight (haha) lifted from my shoulders: this giant self-conscious thing I had been dragging about behind me for twenty years had suddenly had gone and I realised that this was really what it was like to give zero fucks. It feels really good. I urge you to try and get to that place, mentally, if you aren't already there.

This Christmas, though, I realised that I would like to be healthier. Healthier, not skinnier, that was the key. It was putting health before looks, how I felt over what I looked like: I just wanted to be able to run up the three flights of stairs and not feel out of breath, to be able to do more. And so gradually, over about eight months, I've lost five stone.

I'm not thin; I'm not even really that healthy, but I'm a lot better than I was. I can't run a marathon, but I can look in the mirror for probably them first time in my life and not shy away from what I see. It's helping in other aspects of my life, too, with friends and the relationships in my life. I know this statement is potentially problematic, but I really feel like it is true for me: you cannot love someone until you love yourself. How can you really care for other people when you spend 90% of your waking time thinking about how much you hate yourself, and obsessing over what you look like?

It has taken me nearly a decade to get to a place where I want to reclaim my own body. I know I've barely scratched the surface on this journey, but at least I've made a little progress. I'm not saying the way that I've gone about things is the best way, God, no. I have a few really amazing friends and a surprisingly supportive family that have helped along the way but I know that I have done a lot of the hard work myself. The hard work being all that thinking that comes with this kind of stuff, fighting the deluge of internal insults and assaults on your self-confidence that everyone deals with daily. But it's nice to feel like I occupy a bit less space, and a lot more of my body, these days.

zero fucks - confidence

I have been a fan of Franceta over at Frantic Dreams for a while now, she's six-foot-five and has an absolutely amazing body and sense of style. As a larger, almost six-foot-tall girl, I have suffered with confidence problems all my life, and recently I've been getting annoyed at myself for thinking I have to fit into a certain bubble of wearing boring clothes and making myself "blend in" because I am bigger. I think, fuck it, no. And that is basically what Franceta talks about in this video, but says it so much better than I could ever say. I really urge you to watch it. Recently, I've been hating so hard on body/fat shaming and I am so much better for it!

How do you stop giving a fuck? Simple, you stop giving a fuck.