All my trousers are a size 12's but often these are big on my hips. My top
half is a 14 still as I am bosomy. I always thought that I had a great big frame
but has it turned out that I had a lot of fat on a tiny little frame!! I couldn't even squeeze my babies out as my pelvis is too small.

I am five feet tall.

Oh and my feet shrunk too from a five to a four.

My feet have shrunk sideways. I've always had wide feet and if I wanted shoes that don't come in width fittings I always had to buy a 6 or 6.5 but now I take a 5 or 5.5. Its not so bad in hiking trainers because I get through a pair every 6 weeks but my nicer shoes, especially sandals, look a bit strange nowadays.

The absolute best thing about this round of weightloss is that the exercise I'm doing has given me a lot of inch loss around my waist so I've got a a proper waist now and don't look quite so much like a Weeble any more. I've gone down from a 54 inch waist to a 35 inch waist.

Clothes sizes do vary a lot, even within the same makes. When I'm buying on eBay I try and stick to well known brands like Next - I have been buying Next jeans in size 16 regular and some of them fit around the waist and some of them don't. A couple of pairs are VERY small and when I measured them they are only 32 inch waist! Same with M&S and I thought they had standardised their clothing measurements.

Well done, Sarah! That's stunning inch loss!

Talking of dress sizes, height is a big factor. I had a friend who was morbidly obese, a few years back (she since went to WW!) If you looked at her, you'd say she was about a size 30. But she was actually only a 16 or 18. Why? Because she was only five foot tall! Same with a relative of mine. She is only just 5 foot tall and looks like a barrell (a big one) but is only a size 14 in dress sizes... I still can't get my head round it, but it's true!

All my fat is on my thighs now, a bit on my hips too. I'd still be a 16 in jeans but oddly I'm a 12 in skirts. What's that all about? And how can I be a 16 in jeans with a 27" waist? It doesn't add up! My top half can even be a 10, more usually a 12. And my hips are only 38" and yet I can't get into jeans smaller than a 16. It annoys me that I can have a wardrobe full of size 12 now, but if I want jeans, I'd have to have a 16... My thighs must be seriously weird.

Thanks PP, shame it hasn't come off the same all over. The inchloss from other bits of me aren't anywhere near so impressive.

I'm very happy with my bum and legs (I suppose all the walking has helped) but I've still got a preggie look tum and my midriff isn't great either. I do loads of abs in the hope that one day I'll miraculously wake up with a flat tummy and perfect midriff but I think the preggie look tum is here to stay because it never looked THIS bad when I was this weight before I had the hysterectomy. The idiot surgeon did a vertical incission and I think thats when my tummy muscles just gave up even trying.

My upper body is changing in mysterious ways - I do two sessions of upper body weights each week and my boobs (always small and getting smaller) are looking a little more upstanding but my shoulders seem to be getting bigger. My bingo wings are slowly disappearing though. Ah - the joys of doing weights.

I really, really wish I'd taken full measurements before I started this journey - all I had was bust, 'waist', hips and right thigh. To anyone lurking out there at the beginning of your journey - get pictures, take full measurements and keep your largest pair of jeans/trousers - it might be awful at the time but you will appreciate it later, especially on days when it seems like you'll never get to goal.

Mine haven't changed that much I was a 4 wide and now i can get into a three wide go figure. Its a nightmare for things like knee high boots as evans are too wide so unless you get a style that can be worn wide they are far too big on the leg but fine on the foot. Normal boots are fine on the leg but too tight on the foot. Ankle boots are the same too, with things like sandals on the wide sizes the straps are often too big and I have to get the adjusted.

"but I think the preggie look tum is here to stay because it never looked THIS bad when I was this weight before I had the hysterectomy. The idiot surgeon did a vertical incission and I think thats when my tummy muscles just gave up even trying. "

Sarah- my mom had the same op as you and has the same problem. She's a size 14 but her stomach sticks out no matter what.

I still don't know why he did a vertical incission - I didn't even know to ask which way he'd do it because I'd never heard of it - I only thought they do horizontal ones.

I do loads of abs exercises but NOTHING is having any affect on the jelly belly. We were talking about this last evening and DH told me that from the back my lower half looks about a size 14 and from the front I look about a size 22 :( He didn't mean it nastily. :(

I'm around 12 stone, 5'1" and I'm usually a 16-18, depending on the store. I don't really buy girly clothes, though, so I usually go for guy's small/medium in my standard uniform of t-shirt and skater-hoody.

I'm terrible at judging clothing sizes. I HATE trying stuff on, and usually come home with something too small (and, very rarely, something too big, like the lovely demin shorts I bought for this heatwave!). We finally got some branches of H&M/Hennes over here in Ireland, and I bought a gorgeous shirt at a size 18. Got it home and the thing wouldn't fit a barbie doll. Grrrrr at H&M sizes!

Sarah, You've done so brilliantly on the inch loss though that if you keep going, I'm sure you'll get the results you want, eventually. I think I read somewhere that musculature, however good it is, doesn't show on your stomach until your BMI is, I forget but it was something like 21 or 22 - which would be unrealistic for any of us, probably. So, however well we develop our muscles, they have a covering of fat until you strip it right back. But tone and shape wise, you can't be far off being much flatter if you keep going as you have been - just takes time. Also, I dunno about you but I had loose skin, particularly there - it's almost gone now, but it takes time to go in most people, apparently, even upto 18 mths after the weight is gone. And most of what you're seeing at the front may well just be the less toned skin. So give it time and you will see a difference!

Skaytea I'm the same about hating trying things on - I just guess and take it home. When I started losing weight, every new size I hit, I went through a period of denial - so when I was a decent 14, I was still buying clothes in a 16 until about the third thing that came home was too big. Same again, at size 12. And I'm now still buying 12 tops and finding some of them (depending on the cut) are too big. Good job I can sew because I tend to just take them in/ shorten straps whatever rather than take them back! But it seems whenever I hit a new size, it takes my brain a month or two to catch up.

Ooh haven't been in Hennes for years - dunno where one is here. Used to love it in there - nice baby and toddler clothes, too. I still have a tiny Hennes jacket I bought my 3 year old toddler in there - and he's just done his GCSEs!

Thanks, PhatPhoenix, I hope so. :) I looked at some pictures of when I weighed this weight before - both before and after the hysterectomy - and this tummy wasn't there before the op - but in both pictures I was in a top which I've just sold on eBay - which is a size larger than I take now!

I did an abs workout this morning and I can feel that the muscles are there and working so maybe one day I'll have a tummy like the woman who leads my Monday workout class.

When I had my fourth baby, he was born Sept 2000 - as were all the others conceived Millenium Eve! The maternity unit was so full to bursting that night, they had them lined up on trolleys waiting for caesarians, (I heard the next day). One woman told me, the surgeon came to her because she was next in line but in agony - and she said he was actually sobbing with exhaustion! He begged her to let him have a coffee before he did her caesar, or he thought he wouldn't be able to carry on. Anyway he came back and did itonly to be so exhausted, that he made a mistake, and cut right round to the back of her womb. She was patched up but told she could never have another baby as the whole thing might go. So they can make some terrible mistakes, doing caesars. I'd a bad time too as I haemorraghed for some unexplained reason. I had this agency midwife, an Australian, who said I didn't need anaesthetic and sat down doing her paperwork until I was within moments of giving birth. Then she grabbed a cleaner who happened to be walking past, to help her deliver the baby that seconds before she'd told me wouldn't be born for an hour or so yet.... He had to be resussed. Oh the joys of Birmingham Maternity Hospital! Luckily I had my last baby in York where they were friendly and efficient. But it goes to show they do make bad mistakes. I wonder if your GP could get hold of a copy of your notes, so s/he could explain to you why they did the incision that way?

As for your tummy, I'm willing to bet you will have one like your instructor some day soon, the way you're going!

5ft 4ins and around 14 st 5 1/2 lbs (due to being so bad last week!). Size 18.