When I was 344 pounds I was wearing 4XLT, bordering on 5XLT. For skinny people, that means XXXL Tall; an incredibly large shirt (or blanket). Buying clothes is hard for overweight people, especially at the sizes I was wearing. You can forget about buying clothes at stores like Wal-Mart, Target, GAP, Old Navy, American Eagle, etc — they don’t care anything above 3X, and even those are scarce at most chain stores.
Overweight people have to rely on specialty stores, like Lane Bryant (female only), or Casual Male (where I used to shop). Unfortunately, Casual Male is downsizing due to the economy (not the lack of overweight people, I reckon) and my local store was shut down. I don’t know when it happened, but I drove by a few days ago and it was boarded up.
While the downsizing is unfortunate for the employees who worked there, I discovered this weekend that I no longer need to shop at plus-size stores like Casual Male. I decided to open a box I’ve had in my bedroom closet for the past few months; it contains clothes I’ve overgrown throughout the past year or so.
I decided to try on a shirt from the box on Saturday, then another on Sunday; both fit very loose on me.
They’re size 3XLTs.
I haven’t worn a 2X shirt since high school, but I know that’s the next stop. I can just see it now: 6 months down the road, hanging out with friends and family in the mall and shopping at the same stores…
Another motivation to lose this weight.
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I know this is an old post, but just wanted to comment. This is my first of what will probably be a bunch of rambling comments on your blog. =)
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I am currently at the 4xlt knocking on the 5xl door and find you and this site to be a huge (pun no longer intended) motivator.
I too shop at the Casual Male (which I still think its funny that they removed the ‘big and tall’ part from their name) and not only is it hard to bring myself to buy their over priced clothes (guess we really do use more fabric?), but its also a daily reminder when I put on a shirt that would make a ‘normal’ person disappear that I need to do something about my weight.
I also have ‘the box’ of clothes that I hope to one day fit back into. Hell there are shirts, shorts, pants and jeans that still have the tag on them. Being to ashamed to return an item is pretty sad, especially when you know they don’t carry a larger size so I would just keep them no mater the cost.
From one fat guy to a use to be fat guy, thank you in advance for the additional motivation to do something about my weight issues.
Chuck
397lbs as of 10/01/10