green

I think, if I remember right, size 16 is often the biggest size offered at many regular stores even though in theory the regular sizes are supposed to go up to 18. For overweight people they have sizes 14W and up to 18W and for those people who are shorter than "normal" they have the P sizes, as in 12P. Then there are the official fat sizes: 20 and up, and the Xs. One thing that I have always noticed is this: the more expensive the garment the more generously it is cut. Cheap clothes fit small. I have noticed this in shoes as well. I go up a size and half whenever the shoe is made in China. Because my feet are gigantic this is a disaster.

No, skinny jeans are ones where the legs are skinny and tapered in at the ankles, kind of like denim leggings. They used to be in during the '80s and now they are back but they are impossible to find unless you are skinny and prepared to pay big bucks for 'em. The style hasn't filtered down to the regular stores yet. They look great under boots because they don't bulge. You wear them with big sweaters and shirts. I used to get mine at Cotton Ginny and they had Spandex in them. I also had this great pair of black and white checked skinny Capris. Maybe they do have them at the Gap. I haven't been in there for years. Do they have size fat?

Your mother has a point. I like to wear baggy clothes especially in the summer. My weight kept creeping up on me and then when I would try to put my jeans on...well, I couldn't.

I told my family and my friends but my husband told people at work and my hairdresser! Hah! I was not amused by this. He is a lovely man but has never had an idea as to when it is best to keep one's mouth shut. My hairdresser, who is very slender, talked to my tenant about it. The hairdresser didn't get it. Fortunately my tenant is also a friend and already knew about the surgery - in fact she was the one who told me about it in the first place - told me that our hairdresser now knows. This would mean that the neighbourhood nows. Green's life is an open book. Oh well. There's nothing I can do about it now except lose weight....

Perhaps you should see your doc, explain about the problems you are having with sleeping, throwing-up, etc. He may be able to help you and certainly having these stress issues documented will help you legally. It sounds like a temporary restraining order may be in the cards.

Green will give you Winner's hints: it is always good to visit more than one store if you can because they do have some stuff that is different at each store. The store at Bloor and Avenue Road, the so-called designer store, does not respect fat folks. *sniff* It does have nice handbags, though.:rolleyes Happy hunting...er...shopping and may your fill hit the sweet spot.

Congrats to both Argon and Yoda on being obese! And, yep, it does sound funny saying that but we all know what we are talking about. And congrats, Argon, on your NSV with the pants. I think that the NSVs are so cool.

PS: Wheezy, I love the photo.

That is a very good anecdote. I think that most people who have the band have already tried dieting and found their weight going down and up again. Diet works for very few people. I tried exercise. It made me feel good but I was still fat. And while I was getting my fill I met a young and very large woman who had gone through Dr. Bernstein's Weight Loss Clinic. She had lost tons but regained it again. For many of us WLS is the only way. I might become kinda nasty with anyone who criticized me for making this choice. What about you?

I've been a lot more conscious of what I eat and I am eating way less carbs and cheese. The trouble is that I am down on my vegetables since they were a part of the carb and cheese fests. I used to like to stir fry vegies, add 'em to pasta and then load the mess up with cheese. I also used to like to load up a frozen pizza with fresh vegies and cheese. A lot of my fat is cheese flavoured! Now I am eating a lot of yogurt and tuna and soup. This is stuff I started eating during the mushy phase. I guess I am afraid that vegetables will get stuck.

When I knew that my ex-husband was playing around I immediately emptied out the joint bank account and opened up a new one in my name only. I was making the lion's share of the money anyway. He spent the next month watching all his cheques bouncing.

Actually, there is one thing that I would like to buy. I would like to buy a pair of those new skinny jeans if I could find a pair in my (large) size. I wear a lot of big sweaters and big linen shirts and those skinny jeans would look great with them.

Big people have to be careful about track pants. So many of us end up wearing them everywhere, eh.

Congratulations Cloe! Cotton Ginny is one of my favourite stores. They always have good sales and their clothes are made of natural fibres. That is a big deal for me because I tend to sweat a lot. And I am one of those people who is a true Winter and only looks good in black, white, gray, and red - they always have clothes in black and gray, even in the summer! Yep, I love Cotton Ginny and I know you are going to love it, too.

I saw the play performed live some years ago with a girlfriend, her daughter and her daughter's friend. I loved it. It is a great play to see in the company of women. There were no more than a handful of men in the theatre that night. The audience reaction was noisy with the laughter of self-recognition. I wouldn't take my mate if I was going again. He wouldn't get enough of it and this would slow me down.

I would like to go shopping but am enjoying wearing my very baggy clothes. They remind me that I have lost weight.

Here's an NSV that is important to Green: I can now put my clothes in the dryer without worrying that they will shrink. Yippee!

The guys at work told me that you can light 'em....

As for language and the new immigrant, one can end up in deep water so easily. It is very easy for the English speaker who is visiting France and who only has rudimentary skills in French to announce that she is "in heat" or horny when all she wants to say is that she is too warm. And while I was there I heard about a Frenchwoman who tried to order half a kilo of c*nts when she was in Italy and what she really wanted was figs. I myself watched a Danish girlfriend ask for poison instead of fish in a local restaurant. An American girlfriend of mine was in Paris on an exchange visit when she was only 17. The poor kid wanted to find the train station but asked an old fart where the "war" was. He was kinda nasty with the kid and hissed at her that the "war" was over! And there are these regional differences within a language as Isabel, etc. discovered. In England a "shag" is not a hair cut nor the length of your carpet's fibers....

It seems that there is a difference in Black and White attitudes towards the female body and a lot of black women believe that White attitudes are not altogether healthy. They may have a point. The first time I heard about this was many years ago. I had read an interesting article in the New Yorker about weight issues. Many Black women are puzzled by the White woman's obsession with being thin, thin in the case of the tiny sizes - sizes 0 to 6 - to a point of unhealthy fragility. Black women generally prefer to look strong, healthy and curvacious. The actresses who appear in South Asian (Bollywood) flicks also appear much juicier and much healthier than the twig-like Callista Flockhart. This fascination with skinniness may well be a White grrl thing. On the other hand, obese women of colour court the same grave medical problems than White women do and then some. They are even more prone to suffer the ill-effects of hypertension and this is for reasons that are purely physiological. The article had other interesting things to say about weight. It seems that much of the problem of excess weight has to do with one's genetic inheritance. Some of us get many more miles to the gallon than others of us do. Folks whose distant ancestors came from regions where food was scarce are built to survive on little food. This was an advantage in the survival game those many, many thousands of years ago. In this time of plenty this translates into a big arse, health problems, and plenty of social humiliation.

I need more restriction as it now turns out! I can eat anything, dammit! Good thing I am going back for my second fill on the 31st. On the other hand I would have been humiliated if I had pb-ed while the skinny Frenchman was living in my house. I wouldn't have wanted to explain this in English, and it would have been impossible to explain in my poorly remembered French! There are no obese French people for some reason. I am happy that I managed to lose 13 lbs before he arrived. My boobs now stick out further than my gut, thank gawd.

I was there in the morning at the clinic for my first fill. She put in 5cc and I asked her to take 1cc out after a cup of Water got stuck in my gullet. I get my next fill October 31st.

Some of my regrets involve not going out with more guys before I got married and after I got divorced. Green coulda sowed a lot more wild oats than she did! I also regret refusing to learn how to sew, knit, cook and type when I was young. I said I didn't want to get trapped into doing women's work. Big mistake! Now I have to buy my fat clothes, I can't throw a proper dinner party, and I am slow on the computer. I regret not taking my studies seriously when I was at university. Lousy grades last forever.

Thanx, Cloe.

Yep, there are two different clinics. I am not with Dr. Coburn (who sounds like a honey, by the way). I am with the Toronto Lap Band Clinic and they are situated at St. George and Bloor St. which is in the center of Toronto. This works out well for me because I live in the city and I don't drive. I never learned how to drive!!! Dr. Coburn's practice sounds very sensitive to the needs of their patients. Just phone to book your fill and don't worry, be happy.:biggrin1: Let us know how your fill goes. Now that I had my first one I am even more interested in the process, ya know.