I'm only a little less than a month out from surgery but have lost 43 pounds total (pre and post surgery).

My old clothes don't fit! Good problem and luckily I do have sizes below from before I gained all the weight.

I'm cleaning out my closet. I am scared to throw away my old, too big, clothes. I'll put them in a big box and store them, but why?

I don't think I will or want to gain weight back once this is all through, but what if??

what did you do? Donate clothes? Save them in a box, hopefully to never use again?

If you totally got rid of them, when did you do it?

Edited July 23, 20179 yr by AZBlackhawk

Donated everything except this pair of pants so I could do this....

Wow!! Thanks for posting this!! Awesome motivation!

I'm saving one pair of jeans to do what Jess did. I have two bags filled already to head to Goodwill. I'll drive around with them in my car for a month first cuz that's how I roll [emoji23]

I started selling some on swap.com, h&m takes old clothes and give u a 15% discount and the goodwill

Sent from my SM-J700T using BariatricPal mobile app

I agree! Getting rid of my fat clothes is a real motivation for me to stay on this healthy weight loss journey! And it feels so good to go to the department stores & be able to buy a smaller size! I havent had my surgery yet (Aug. 16th) but I was able to go down 3 dress sizes & 2. Pant sizes![emoji106] looking forward to loosing more weight!

Sent from my SM-T530NU using BariatricPal mobile app

On 7/23/2017 at 4:51 PM, Newme17 said:

When you do, I believe you'll find freedom of letting go of the old you. ?

For any of you that listen to the WLS Podcast, Reeger always says "you have to be willing to let the old you die" to succeed at WLS.

16 hours ago, jrpinkard said:

I started selling some on swap.com, h&m takes old clothes and give u a 15% discount and the goodwill

Sent from my SM-J700T using BariatricPal mobile app

I love Swap.com! I wish I knew about them when I first started losing weight. Buying clothes just to grow out of them in several weeks, was really a chore. Prior to the surgery, I never would have visited a site like that, but now, I'm more than thankful for it.

7 hours ago, gwbicster said:

For any of you that listen to the WLS Podcast, Reeger always says "you have to be willing to let the old you die" to succeed at WLS.

I had a huge issue w/ letting go of my clothes, but you're so right. I've decided to take my clothes to the Mission this weekend, it's time to let go. Thank you for this, today was my day to see your words!

I started selling some on swap.com, h&m takes old clothes and give u a 15% discount and the goodwill

Sent from my SM-J700T using BariatricPal mobile app

Really? I didn't know that! H&M! That's cool!

Swap.com
ThreadUp
Poshmark
Mercari

I love all of them and occasionally eBay too. I love the idea of clothing subscription companies and wish Gwennie Bee (I think that's spelled right?) went below a size 10! If they did I'd totally subscribe I love their choices!

2 minutes ago, jess9395 said:

Swap.com
ThreadUp
Poshmark
Mercari

I love all of them and occasionally eBay too. I love the idea of clothing subscription companies and wish Gwennie Bee (I think that's spelled right?) went below a size 10! If they did I'd totally subscribe I love their choices!

My mother just told me about Gweenie, I need to take a look at their site. I started out as a size 34/36 and I'm now at a 14/16, I kid you not, I'm still holding on to all of my clothes. I have bags of clothes just sitting in the closet, but not anymore. I'm fully ready to let go. I will do what you did and hold on to only one pair of pants. Where I was and where I am, such a great idea you had Jess!

It is hard to "let go" of our bigger size clothes...I have "yo-yo-ed" so much over the years...going up and down with my weight, I keep thinking I have to hang on to all the different sizes. I have just started my weight loss journey and my clothes are already getting looser. My plans are to get rid of my "too big" clothes as I lose more weight......I Love to shop for new clothes! I am looking forward to not shopping at the Plus Size stores....but I still have a ways to go.......

Good Luck!

What about starting a clothing exchange at the facility where you had the surgery?

On July 24, 2017 at 6:17 AM, sunmeadow said:

The Saturday before my surgery (which was a week ago today), I donated 3 large trash bags of my big out-of-season clothes and consolidated my smaller clothes into a single bin.

I found it very liberating, especially the ones that I realized I actually hated, but bought only because they fit at the time.

p.s. An organizational consultant that I saw speak at a conference let us all in on a secret:

"They will never stop selling black pants."

Yes. The clothes I bought just bc they fit...not bc I liked them!! No more doing that!

Unfortunately I live in a country that has one of the lowest obesity levels in the world, and where second-hand shops aren't interested in big clothes like mine. Plus, not being able to shop here has meant that I've always had the "just in case" mentality of saving all kinds of clothes, even ones with rips, tears, and stains, just in case I needed something at a particular size because there is no possibility of me finding anything in the shops here, ever.

However, as I started losing weight, the first thing I did was get rid of all the clothes that had holes, tears, stains, etc. Two huge garbage bags full went into the trash. Then, anything that was too big went into storage boxes - 7 of them. But since then I have lost enough weight to fill 2 more storage boxes. My plan was originally to try to give away or sell clothes to any large women here in my local area. But it's going to take a lot of time to do it, and I still may end up with a lot of clothes left over.

Since I'm going home for vacation soon, I've decided to pack up my suitcase with as many clothes as I can that I can donate to an organisation that will pass them on to people in need. I could do that here, but they tend to cut up the clothes into scraps, and I don't want that for most of my clothes, especially the ones that were barely or never worn. Hopefully I'll be able to take at least half of all my big clothes home with me. The rest I will try to give away when I come back, or donate them to places like H&M, since I can get their discount coupon with every donation (not that I can shop there yet - or would want to).

I'm still struggling with the "just in case" mentality, since I've lived with it for so long; on the other hand, being able to free up closet space will be a huge plus since there is almost no closet space in most apartments here in Japan. However, I will be doing shopping for new clothes when I go home, but it will be difficult to plan ahead, in thinking about how small I should buy certain items, since I will definitely keep losing weight over the next year, but who knows how much. The worst thing is that, even when and if I reach a healthy BMI, I probably won't be able to buy anything here, because I'm way too curvy. Japanese women are not known for having much in terms of breasts, hips, thighs, or butts, so most clothes are cut with that in mind. So even very thin Western women have a hard time finding clothes here because there's nothing extra cut into tops or pants or anything else to accommodate those curvy body parts.

I just had my surgery but this subject of letting go of my clothes came up a lot because we all know how hard we shopped to find things in our size and that we liked. My husband says "even if someday way down the road you gain weight back those clothes won't be in style." It makes sense for me it's taken many many years for me to get this size I am letting mine go when the time comes. Thinking possibly to a womens shelter.