I’ve been mulling this over in my head, so bear with me.
I am hard to fit, only 5’2" and curvy in that there is a more-than average differential between my hips and waist. I have to buy everything to my hip size… my waist is small. Since I carry my weight in my hips, what this means is that with relatively tiny fluctuations in weight, I change pants/skirt sizes. (My size for tops always remains about the same)
For example, 1 month ago I was shopping in H&M. Nothing under size 8 fit me. In the past month I lost 2 lbs. (133, now 131) Who-hoo. I went into H&M on friday and everthing fit me in 6. If I lose about 5 more pounds, I will be a 4.
The usual rule I’ve heard is that you should chuck anything you haven’t worn in a year. My problem is that I go thorugh periods of “8” ness and get rid of everything in size 4 (keeping my favorite 6’s as “skinny pants”) Then I get more active, lose just a couple of pounds, and need the smaller size, and am virtually swimming in the 8s, and of course hoping I won’t need them ever again, so I get rid of them. Life intrudes on my workout schedule, I gain 2 or 3 pounds, the cycle continues.
Unfortunately, I live in a small NYC apartment and have no room to warehouse lots of non-fitting clothes. On the other hand, I cannot afford to completely rework my work clothes each year (which are conservative dress, and thus, on the whole expensive, lucky breaks at H&M notwithstanding).
The worst part is, I absolutely hate to shop. I get stressed out completely and hypercritical of everything I see (I try not to shop alone for this reason, I need someone to talk me down). I have on more than one occasion broken down in tears when trying to buy a basic pair of pants. What’s a girl to do!?
