I wish something so simple as finding clothing that made me COMFORTABLE and that felt GREAT would be an easy thing to find. When I was dieting, I had no trouble finding straight sized clothing (NOTE: straight sized clothing typically refers to clothing you can get in mainstream clothing stores – like Target, H&M, Abercrombie, Walmart, Costco, etc. Size sizes typically run from 2-14; XS-XL). I’ll never forget when I outgrew the sizes my local Costco had – I was wearing too tight leggings for a while and refused to get plus size clothing. My therapist encouraged me to purchase clothing that fit – but that meant I was now plus-sized. I panicked at the thought – WHAT? I’m not plus sized?!?! But I was, and still am. I still wear leggings and over-sized shirts, but now I’m wearing the right sizes. My clothing is no longer restricting, but it’s overflowing and large because I still feel the need to cover myself up. I choose to purchase most of my clothing online because it’s far easier to do a try on haul in the privacy of my bathroom rather than trying to mitigate my feelings in a change-room stall.
Everyone is going to have their own style as their body grows. When I was thinner, I went for shirts that were flowy and didn’t hug my stomach. Now that I’m fatter, I still don’t like tight shirts. But to get that flowy look you have to size up, like A LOT. I find that I’m all over the place with sizing from one store to the next! It’s very triggering to be an size 16 at one store but have to jump to a 20 at another one. I spend a lot of time reading reviews online (please leave them on plus-size clothing; it’s extremely important as most of us shop online!) For me, I settled into wearing leggings and tunic style tops. Because I’m not working, I didn’t have to deal with finding a professional wardrobe. But If I had to jump back into the corporate world, I probably would have purchased straight leg elastic waistband pants in black and would have rotated tunic tops with some color appropriate for the office.
I had to search to find the right legging because A LOT of them have some sort of compression in them, when after you eat or are bloated, feel the WORST! That was so triggering to me – the feel of the pressure of a too tight elastic around my stomach (which is my trigger area) was death upon a thousand deaths. Could you imagine after eating a meal, feeling it in the exact area that throws you into a spiral of anxiety and self-shame!??! As I mentioned above, I resisted buying larger clothing for about 4 months because I just didn’t want to be plus-sized. It’s like I crossed over into some forbidden world when I had to see the 1X on the tag (or size 16,18,20). It was hard and is still hard to be OK with being a certain size. I know it should not matter, but for that spilt second, to me, yeah, it does matter to me.
I have to pause here and acknowledge that size inclusivity has come a LONG WAY. You can walk into most stores and find sizes up to around 16-18 (XXL) without it being thrusted into the plus-sized area. I think that’s fantastic. I personally shop at Costco a lot and when I saw them carrying sizes in the warehouse up to XXL, I was able to purchase a lot of things! I also noticed that Costco online carried plus-sizes in a lot of the styles available in warehouse. So I was able to touch, feel and see a product and if I needed it in a bigger size, I could order it online. I’ll give you an example – I needed snow pants. We go sled riding all the time in the winter and enjoy going to winter cabins and occasionally go tubing or skating. I needed snow pants for this. The particular brand in the warehouse carried up to an XXL. I brought them home and couldn’t even get them over my hips. NOT EVEN CLOSE. I was defeated. While the price in the warehouse was $40, online Costco would automatically charge me another $8. While they do this for ALL of the products online, I was now forced to pay an additional $8 more for something that was available in the warehouse, but that was too small. I ended up ordering a 2X in the snow pants and the fit was perfect. But what if the 2X wasn’t perfect? I would have had to buy another size paying an additional $8 that in the end would have cost me $16 more than someone who was a size XS-XXL. It’s frustrating, but there was no other way!
I know that a lot of stores offer free shipping (after spending a certain amount) and offer free returns. Here where some of my favorites that carried me through and still do! Target, Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Old Navy and Marshalls. I would add Torrid to this list, but I find them obscenely overpriced and often have to wait for sales. In the future I’ll probably create a page with some of my finds so that you guys can click through and order what you think may work for you. For now that’s way too much work – I’m not an influencer by any means and don’t have the time, energy to patience to start something like that right now! Never say never though!
I also found that completely re-vamping your Instagram/Facebook/Tiktok helps tremendously. I’ll get more into this when I talk about body image, but for now, you should diversity your feed to look for women who are doing clothing try-on hauls. Yes most, if not all of them are influencers, BUT if you are a similar size and body shape to them you have a free way to see how clothing may look. They’ve done the hard work for you AND they are doing this and putting themselves out there so that YOU can buy clothing that makes you feel better about yourself. I’d say that’s a fantastic reason to support them which costs you NOTHING extra! Any many of these women may have had an eating disorder or had disordered eating in the past and so share that vulnerability with you! So seek and you shall find!
Oh, and before I forget, getting new clothing doesn’t just include pants and tops. You have to buy new undergarments too! Your underwear size and style may change. You may have been ok wearing thongs or low-rise underwear back when you were thinner. Now, you may want full coverage cotton underwear, or a stretchy, elastic kind that goes over your stomach area. You’re going to have to experiment with this. I spent a considerable amount of money buying underwear because it’s non-returnable at most stores. I probably have between $75-100 worth of underwear I won’t ever wear or use. This also goes for bras (but you can return most of those!) You breasts will most likely get VERY large when you gain weight in recovery; and they often do whatever they want! I’ll be honest, for a while there I just lived in soft cotton bralettes. They don’t do much to rise and separate the girls BUT they were comfortable, I was comfortable and it worked for everyone.