Project Fatass: The Trouble With Jeans

When people ask me what my biggest problems are after my gastric bypass I think they are expecting me to say that I’m sick, that I can’t eat the things I love or that I have some freakish pain… but that’s not it, I have none of those problems.  Right now my biggest problems are hair loss (I knew this was coming) and LACK OF CLOTHES. 

I honestly had no idea how much quicker the weight loss would show in my clothes than it does on the scale.  I feel like I should still fit into things that I wore a month ago because my weight hasn’t changed a huge amount, but apparently my body has.  The pile of clothes that don’t fit is getting bigger and bigger and has pretty much taken over our dining room. I’ve given away a load to friends, I’ve sent a few bags to the clothing bins for the homeless outside our supermarket and I still have piles left over to photograph and put up for sale.

What does that leave me?  Not a heck of a lot!

I am incredibly lucky that I have a few friends who have passed on some of the clothes they aren’t wearing. The clothes they have given me are pretty much what I have been living in over the past few months.  One thing that is always difficult, though, is jeans (well, any pants at all really!).  I thought that losing weight would change my issues with finding jeans to fit, but that’s not the case at all.  I still have the very same problem just in smaller sizes, and boy does it tick me off.

I am such an incredibly odd shape that I can’t just say “Oh I’m a size so and so” and someone can hand over a pair of jeans and they will fit.  I am pear shaped and I have a very small waist and that makes things very difficult.  By the time I get jeans to fit around my arse, the waist is miles big and that’s never comfortable.  Most times I have to settle for at least a partially elasticized waist and while that’s not something I really like, I do it because it works.  I hope that one day I even out, that my thighs and bum get small enough to allow me to get jeans that fit in the waist too (without elastic) but for now, that’s life!

Today I went shopping because I don’t have a single pair of jeans that fits me the way I like.  All the ones I have now are too big and I spend all day tugging them up because the crotch drops halfway to my knees and the bum sags.  I know I’m going to have to get my head around wearing belts soon but I really don’t find them comfortable.

See, here’s the problem…  Today I went to a store called Miss Etam to try on jeans and this was the first pair I put on.

They were a size 48 (size 18 in US and Canada) that was a little too big anyway but WAY too big in the waist.  I went all the way down to a size 44 (14) and while the 44 was quite tight in my legs and butt, I was able to get them buttoned and zipped and the waist was STILL to big.

I tried every style they had in their plus section, trying them all in sizes 46-48 but it was the same every time. Some came close to being ok but I knew once I wore them for an hour I’d be tugging at them because the waist was too big.  I did the same in their regular sizes, trying the larger sizes in the regular part which was a size 46 (16) but had the exact same problem.  In the end it was either buy them and get a belt or don’t buy them at all.  I went for don’t buy them at all… and swore a little (ok, a lot).

I think I tried on almost every pair of jeans in the city before deciding to go to one of the plus sized stores I used to shop at a lot.  I had gotten jeans there in the past when I was bigger but still had the same problem.  The back of their jeans are elasticized (groan) but dammit, they fit my shape.  I was so hoping to be able to go to a normal shop and buy normal jeans, ya know?  Like to have this great moment where I can be all “WAHOOO jeans are no longer the bane of my existence!!”  Nope, they still are. ALL pants are!

So, off I went to Ulla Popken.  It wasn’t so bad because I’d just gotten a pamphlet in the mail from them for 10% off because it was my birthday on Tuesday (37, I’m making my mother feel so old! haha).  At least I could get my elasticized fat girl jeans for cheaper!

There’s no denying it, they just fit better, they really do!  No big sticky outy bit at my waist.  So I bought them.

I can’t really complain.  The last pair of I bought of these was just over a year ago and they were a size 52 (Size 22 in Canada / US) but today?  Today I walked out with a size 46 (size 16!!).

A size 16 people!!

I get that a size 16 would have some people running to the gym and crying in their martinis about how fat they’ve gotten but for me, coming from roughly a wrap around the moon size, a size 16 is freaking great!!

Even if they do have stupid elastic at the waist.

I’m not even going to get into the fact that those jeans are petite length and STILL too long for me.  I don’t even know why I argue when my husband and best friend call me Shire Folk.