Saturday Swapit #16

It’s Saturday and time for another Saturday Swapit, a place where you are invited to share success stories and perhaps those not quite successful plus thoughts and ideas on the subject of food and diets.
The idea is to hopefully provide support to others whose original enthusiasm has bit the dust or things aren’t moving in the right direction as fast as they’d like.

DISCLAIMER:
I am not, nor do I claim to be, a professional dietician, nutritionist or diet programme consultant.
I rejoined SW in May 2019 and have managed to stay within my target parameters since August 2019.
Anyone who wants or needs to lose serious weight should consult a medical professional or their GP.
Saturday Swapit is not intended as a diet programme.

This week I am touching on the subject of clothes.

To join in, write a post about your experiences and pingback to this one, then leave a link in the comments, or if you prefer, just leave a comment below.
Thanks again for your responses last week. I appreciate your support and participation.

It is always nice to take a pride in your appearance and to lose those extra pounds so that our clothes feel more comfortable and we can avoid a potential wardrobe malfunction when things fit just a little too well and there is no ‘give’.
Body shape is also something to consider, as how many of us have admired something on someone else and when trying on something similar, well, the desired effect isn’t exactly flattering.
MIL could never understand why I wasn’t interested in her cast offs, even though many were brand new with the labels attached that she’d bought on a whim, didn’t like after all, but wouldn’t take them back. FIL put a hanging rail in the roof and she could give M&S a run for the money.
I should point out the clothes were always good quality and not something you’d buy from a market or chain store, but she was my MIL, not my friend, and I was a good six inches taller than she was.

I hate shopping for clothes, especially something for a special occasion, and I remember buying a skirt and blouse for a forthcoming wedding which didn’t fit on the day and it was a mad panic to find something suitable at a price I could afford. I settled on a pair of trousers and top in pale blue. They were a size 22, and what I’d bought previously were a size 18. The photos were a wake up call, and I never wore them again.
From that day, diets were the norm, hard work and soul destroying. It had been hard enough in my twenties, but now I was older, had more weight to lose than ever before,  and baggy clothes with some kind of style or shape to them were hard to find.
Stripes and hoops made me look like some kind of fairground stall, and bright colours just drew attention to me, which was definitely not what I wanted. I opted for black, navy and brown as my base colours, then would buy tops with a bit of relief colour in them.
I bought similar skirts in black, red, and green but the navy one had huge yellow flowers on it. I wore it a lot with a yellow top trimmed in blue, until they decorated the office and the paint was the same colour yellow so I blended in very well!

These days, I buy men’s joggers and tees as they are more generous where it counts for me, and I have come down from an extra large to a medium in three years.  I own one frock that I bought for my niece’s wedding in 2017. I had fun that day shopping as I tried on three different styles in a size 14, 16 and 18, and they all fitted! Buying clothes is no longer a size game. It all comes down to cut and style.
I bought the one on the left, but haven’t tried it on since.

As with so many of us, my weight yo-yo’d, and it is only since joining SW that I have come to appreciate food, and more importantly, where I was going wrong.
Tell someone you’re on a diet, and they expect you to eat salads all the time and chew on carrots.

It’s so different now. There is so much choice and one secret is the method of cooking.
Grilling is better than frying for instance. My new cooker has a built in grill in the oven space. Hubby has used it once and it’s very efficient, but I prefer a frying pan and cook sausages, chicken, chops and even steak when we had them, in water rather than fat. It keeps the meat moist and you retain the flavour.

Melanie suggested a theme of a ‘special’ diet due to health concerns.
Shall we go there for next week? I’d be interested in suggestions for future swapits.

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