[makingthechanges]

For so long, I always bought long shirts to hide my stomach. I've always been an apple shape, particularly when I was at my biggest. One thing I've learned in my countless Goodwill shopping trips since I started losing is that, this style in no longer my friend, since I am short. In fact, it probably never was.

I watch What Not to Wear a lot and have sort of absorbed the knowledge that long tops on a short person like me just makes me look shorter. It was one thing to see it on tv, but seeing it in action has really been amazing to me. The right top can easily make me look 10-15 lbs lighter.

What's funny is I still gravitate to those style shirts, and have to try them on every single time to learn yet again that, this look does not work for me. It's a form of the body image distortion I guess, but mine is all clothes. I have to make myself try things on that ordinarily I would just reject then it turns out they look so much better!

Two things Stacey and Clinton always say on the show that really resonate with me are "Dress the body you have, not the one you want" and "Let the clothes do some of the work for you" (meaning things like darts, fitted jackets etc). While I'm having so much fun rediscovering the fun of style, I'm kinda mad at myself that all this time, I've been making myself look even bigger than I was!

Anyone else having clothing epiphanies?

[runningfromfat]

Yes! Here are the biggest for me:

- Buying a well fitting bra is worth the money and way more important than buying well-fitting clothes.

- I wore black ALWAYS at my highest weight because I had this idea if you're overweight you need to wear black. Well, black actually washes me out a lot and it's very flattering. I look significantly better in colors.

- Just because clothes are cheap doesn't mean that it's worth it to buy them. this is a hard one for me because I didn't grow up with much money so I'm always looking to save. However, it doesn't make sense to buy a cheap shirt that I would rarely use because it doesn't fit well vs. one shirt that I can use for a longer period of time and I've been willing to spend the money to get altered as I lose.

[Precious Little]

I LOVE What Not To Wear! I enjoy both the UK and the US versions. Now Trinny and Susannah have done other shows travelling around Australia and the US. I always learn something when I watch.

I have spent a long time blaming my body for looking bad in certain clothes - and now I've just realised that sometimes (well, probably more than that) it's the clothes that are wrong/bad for my body shape.

I tried on one of my own short sleeved tops recently and the front just stuck out (giving me a bigger tummy than I have) and this time I was able to identify there was something wrong with the top, it was stretched out weird or something. But anyway, I know it wasn't me