You know, I've been feeling really good lately. I hit my third 10% goal, gone down another tier with my BMI, and have lost a total of 100 pounds altogether all in the past month. I've bought a few new clothes and feel pretty good with them. Even bought a new purse and I'm wearing the boots I used to feel a little awkward in. I walked around the mall with confidence today.
I've also just gotten my own car, which has been a big help with me conquering my agoraphobia and regaining my independence. I've been taking baby steps with exploring the area. I attended my first TOPS meeting last week and toured two of the local YMCA's today, a really big deal for me to go all by myself. I'm finally getting off my duff with the whole exercise thing and plan on doing lap swimming. It used to be my absolute favorite exercise and I'm pretty excited about getting my Y membership!
I've also realized that now that I'll be swimming again, I'm going to need a new swimsuit. The one I have now will still do fine for lap swimming, but I'd also really like to take the water aerobics class, which will be included with my membership. The problem there is that my suit has a skirt, and will ride up over my exposed stomach if I stand in the water to exercise. I'm so not comfortable with that, lol. I know it's not really a good time of year to be looking for a new suit, but I had luck at the same time of year at Macy's when I was visiting Palm Springs a couple of years ago. Since I'm in Vegas and it's warm nearly year round, I thought I might have luck at Macy's here too. So as I was feeling all confident while strolling through the mall, my first stop was Macy's. I browsed through the clothes, realized there was no plus sized section, and looked at the directory. Ah, so they were on another floor . . .
I go to the next floor up and take a look around. No signs of swim suits with the rest of the clothes, so I asked if they still happened to have any. The lady got all indignant with me. Not only was it the wrong time of year, she informed me that they don't carry plus sized suits at all. She added I could look through the clearance section of the lower floor but I wouldn't be fitting in anything there.
. . .
I didn't let it get to me, at least not at first. I went around to a few other stores but didn't do any more asking. When my boyfriend called a little later, the subject got brought up and I started crying.
It's not so much that she seemed a bit rude to me, although I can't imagine it helped. I know I've made a lot of progress on this weight loss journey, but I'm still only halfway there. It gets so frustrating at times to know that I'm *still* stuck in plus sizes, that I'm still stuck at places like Lane Bryant and Torrid and the hidden sections of "regular" stores that treat the bigger sizes like an embarrassment. It's even worse to hear that they don't even bother to carry plus sized suits anymore (although I realize that's pretty typical of a lot of stores).
It makes me feel like a second-class citizen or something. I've worked so hard especially on these last 25 pounds to only go down one size (from a 24 to a 22). But to look on the bright side, at my highest weight I couldn't even fit into what most plus-sized stores carry. So yeah, I'm definitely making progress. My eating habits are so much better, I'm on my way to being more active again, I'm feeling better overall and am much happier than I used to be. But I still have the occasional bad day. I guess we all do.
I'm afraid I'll probably have to resort to buying a suit online, and I'm a little scared of not being able to try on stuff first, even if there's an ample return policy. It's really important to me to feel comfortable in whatever I end up with. I know I'll figure something out regardless, I'm just feeling a little intimidated at the moment.
Anyway, I'm not trying to start a pity-party or anything here. I'm dusting myself off like I've been doing over and over these past few months, taking things one step at a time. I'm actually feeling a lot better than I was earlier; I talked to a store manager in another part of the mall that may be offering me a job! I haven't been able to work in a while and it's a really fun position I had years ago so I think it will really be good for me.
But yeah, feeling better now. Venting over.