Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Fat Frustrations

I've talked before about how I've struggled with weight my whole life. And how I've also been athletic my whole life. My favorite thing to do is swim and that is because I'm good at it. I swam competitively from the age of 6 through college. No matter how out of shape I've been, I've always been able to go swimming and feel good about myself.

But, I've long since surpassed the largest sizes that you can buy a 'real' competitive swim suit in (they go up to about a woman's size 14). So I've struggled to find a decent suit, that stays up, holds up to being in chlorine for 2+ days a week, is reasonably priced and isn't for 90 year olds. My most success has come from swim outlet - these two suits specifically. BUT. They cost about $70 - $80 a suit, and it's IMPOSSIBLE to actually have a choice in color.

I was pretty happy with my last TYR suit, but in the last few weeks, I've noticed that it seems stretched out. It was fitting looser, and I'd only had it for 4 months. Like I've said, I've been swimming my whole life, and I'm fully aware that any suit will stretch out over time, but this suit promised to last for '300 hours of use'. I'd maybe worn it for 60 hours. And I'd paid $80. So I was annoyed. Especially because I have a swim meet coming up next month and you don't really want a loose suit when you are diving off a block, if you catch my drift.

So I started looking for a new suit. After two weeks of searching (it takes a long time to weed through the ones for 90 year old women) I found one.  I really wanted it in purple, but they only had it in the size lower than I thought I was. So I ordered it in blue in the size I thought I was, and the purple one too, figuring I could send it back when it didn't fit.

The suits arrived today. I tried the blue one on first.... and it was loose. It fit just like the suit I'm currently using. So I tried on the purple one, and it fits just right. Turns out, when you swim consistently for months, your body shape changes. It's cracks me up how my first thought was that the suit was failing, and not that I could have gotten smaller.

In all seriousness though - this is one of the more annoying things about being plus sized. It is ALWAYS a struggle to find appropriate clothes. Others have this as a focus of their blogging (along with fat acceptance in general) - but when I want to find something specific, it is usually either impossible to find it in the exact color I'm picturing, or insanely expensive. And that is really frustrating. How I long to be able to walk into target and buy myself a nice gray cardigan for $20 (now that I've found my bathing suit, this is my next quest - I'd like a lightweight grey cardi to wear with a couple outfits I have). I've been looking for about a week now, and the best bet is an online store where I found one for $45. And I would have to buy it ONLINE and therefore it's a hit or miss if it will even fit right.

First world problems.

1 comment:

Erin said...

This made me smile. Enjoy your new suit, and the new bod.