Losing It: Buh-Bye, Fat Clothes

Robin with her enormous pile of to-donate, too-big clothes.

Inspired by my good friend Eminem, I spent yesterday afternoon cleanin’ out my closet. While his closet was full of crazy-ass emotional baggage, violence, and weaponry, mine was full of clothes and shoes that I haven’t worn (or, in some cases, seen) in 10 years. You may recall that my clothes used to spend their time mocking me because I was too chubby to wear them. Well, joke’s on you, clothes, because I brought in the big guns and now have two huge trash bags full of you to donate!

By “big guns” I mean Hallie, one of my best friends since the age of 10. I trust her implicitly and gave her carte blanche when it came to the items in my closet. If she told me to get rid of it, it went into the pile, no questions asked.

Some items were just way too big, i.e.: many pairs of pants that were literally hanging off of me (I have the flattest ass possibly ever and sometimes have a tough time finding pants that DON’T look ridiculous from behind. It’s a problem.) Some items were just way too old. Ummmm … I may have unearthed a pair of Naots that I bought when I went to Israel. The summer before my senior year. Of high school. In 1993. All right, all right … I’ll admit that still having those around is ridiculous, and completely disgusting. They still had an aura of barefoot, hippie, stank-ness about them even though I haven’t worn them in 15 years.

Moving on … Some items were just way too out-of-style. Knee-length skirts, anyone? Ponchos were in a few years ago, right? I had, like, three or four hanging up. One was grey wool fair isle and oh-so-pretty. Or so I thought. Hallie pointed right to the pile. Rude. Some items were just ill-fitting: Tanks that cut me in a weird spot. T’s that have magically become five inches shorter over the years. And, alas, some items that just don’t fit me because my two-pregnancies-later body is vastly different than the original model.

In the end, I had a HUGE pile to donate, my closet was completely reorganized, and I felt about 20 pounds lighter. This reorg was a long time in the making. The thought of going through all of my clothes was overwhelming and I definitely needed someone there to help me eye things critically and then let them go. I had been holding on to things for different reasons: perhaps sentimentality, or the hope that someday they would fit me again. Nope. I have to stick to the golden rule of the closet clean-out: If you haven’t worn it in a year, get rid of it. I guess I was also holding on to some of my larger-sized items because I was afraid that I wouldn’t lose the weight and would HAVE to keep wearing them. Negative. The “fat clothes” are gone and I will never have the need to wear them again. Ever.

What I Did This Week
I had my weekly Skype meeting with Dr. Charlie on Thursday, which was a good thing because I was meeting my family for dinner at Honey’s Sit ‘n Eat that night. One of my favorite spots in the city, Honey’s food is amazing, if not exactly healthy. Charlie and I actually went through the menu and picked out some sensible options that were not salads. Why not salads? Because, honestly, I love to go out to eat and get legitimately pissed when other people are eating whatever they want and I feel like I need to have a salad to be “good.” We talked about this whole food guilt thing that I have going on and he is on a mission to change my mindset. He wants me to stop regarding my food choices (and, by extension, myself) as “good” or “bad” and to be able to enjoy what I’m eating. He wants me to be smart about my choices and consider how I’m going to feel AFTER I’ve eaten. He thinks that the real key for me is exercise and so …

We met at Newtown Athletic Club at 7:30 Sunday morning to run through a weight training circuit that he had created for me. Never a fan of weights, I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. He said that he was going to take it easy on me and just show me different exercises to make sure I had the positioning right. After we ran through the whole thing—which included arms, shoulders, abs, legs, butt, etc—I was actually moron enough to tell him that it was time to kick my ass a little bit since I hadn’t worked out since Wednesday. Kick my ass he did, as I literally cannot move today. I had to take an Aleve just to be able to sit down on the toilet. I don’t blame him, as I asked for it and, I’m not gonna lie, I kinda like the pain. It’s that “I worked really hard and even though walking is a little bit difficult today, I know that I’m going to see results” pain. Bring it on, Dr. Charlie. With his help, I might have to get rid of two more bags of clothes that don’t fit me very, very soon.

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Robin Raskin blogs about her weight loss journey Thursdays on Be Well Philly. Catch up on the series here, and follow her on Twitter at @RobinRaskin. Join Robin’s Healthy Recipe Swap Facebook group here.