My Week In Style

 This Week’s Attire:  I’m changing the format of today’s blog slightly.  Normally it would be today’s attire, but I’m still in bed and that attire isn’t very interesting.  However I wore some interesting outfits this week and didn’t have the chance to blog about them, so I going to mention them now:

Monday: Red jersey tank top with silver stud detail (White House Black Market Outlet $28) over black cropped pants (Ross, $13) Black ¾ sleeve one button blazer (Torrid $40) paired with black stilettos with silver heel (White House Black Market Outlet $20)

Monday Evening appearance: Black Annalise dress with pink elephant martini detail on the lapel and the waist (Pinup Girl Clothing $90), royal blue crinoline (Unique Vintage $40) black flat Mary Janes (Payless $15)

Tuesday:  Red leopard print dress with sweetheart neckline and flowy skirt (White House Black Market $60), black blazer with ¾ length sleeves (Torrid $40) black flat Mary Janes (Payless $15)

Tuesday Evening:  One shouldered gold satin dress with olive green crochet overlay (Macy’s $85)  gold rounded toe glitter sparkly flats (Payless $8) accessorizes with green flower fascinator with peacock feather detail (made by my friend’s Carolina’s mother)

Wednesday: A ribbed cream scoop neck tee (Banana Republic $8) under a charcoal grey pinstripe 3 button vest (Gap $23) with dark wash boot cut with heavy white stitching jeans (Ross $16) with black leather stud clog slides (Rapport Outlet $19)

Thursday: Black jersey scoop neck tee (Banana Republic $4) black a-line skirt with white and silver rose print (White House Black Market $38) silver mock croc ballet flats (Payless $12)

Thursday Evening: Leopard print velour halter top (Pinup Girl Clothing Yard Sale $5) paired with black patent leather flat Mary Janes (Payless $15)

Friday: Grey with black polka dot ¾ length sleeve peplum blouse (White House Black Market $35) black cropped pants (Ross $13) grey cotton ballet flat with bow detail (Payless $14)

Friday Evening: Luscious Dress in Navy with red  Octavio the Octopus detail on the shoulder (Pinup Girl Clothing $65) paired with a wide red belt (Ann Taylor Loft Outlet $12) and silver mock crock ballet flats (Payless $12)

My Week In Style:

All of these outfits were my attempt to dress well and feel good about myself.  I read a book that inspired me and wanted to apply the lessons that I learned from this book.  The book is called The Truth About Style by Stacy London (The stylist from TLC’s What Not To Wear). I highly suggest reading this book to deal with style and some life challenges.  It really helped me. I already had a love of clothes and fashion, but really making an effort with my personal style has motivated me in a positive way.  I feel like I have a little more pep in my step. And I'm trying to reward for myself for the the things that I've made progress on, and not punish myself for every little failure. I'm taking the effort to dress for a path that I want, in hopes that opens the doors to better opportunities for me in the future.  That's within my control. And things that are beyond my control, I'm letting go of, and working hard to get past those things. I might be low man on the totem pole at work, and I'm not the rock star that I want to be, but I can dress like I've got some authority in the office and have the ability to hit the red carpet.  And that's what being a budget fashionista rock star is all about. 

My Struggle With Weight and Body Image

Today's Attire: Black sleeveless dress with white polka dots (Macy's $42), black knee length boots (Torrid $55)

Outfit Justification: I was in so much pain from a spin class yesterday anything on my body would have hurt. I found the easiest thing I could find.

 My Struggle With Weight and Body Image:

At this very moment, I'm sitting in my bedroom behind a locked door in the dark. I’m in the lowest spirits I’ve been in a long time. Even as I attempt to write this, I have to stop to clear away tears.  But I feel compelled to write because I hope in some way it will help.
I’ve been dealing with my struggle with weight for years. Some days I’m fine and I can deal. And then there are days like today where I all I want to do is hide from the world because I feel so horrible and ugly and fat. I can’t even tell you how much self loathing and disdain I have for myself at this moment. 

Since January I’ve really tried to follow a healthy eating plan, add some physical activity to my life and forgo drinking so I can slim down and be a healthy weight by the time my 40^th birthday rolled around.  It’s been almost 3 months and the weight loss progress has been so slow it’s maddening. And even though I’m fighting thyroid disease and taking medication and I know it’s working against me in so many ways, I still try to push forward in hopes that the weight will come off. It was coming off at a steady rate leading up to my trip to Chicago. I didn’t make my own personal goal of trying to get under 200 pounds before I left for the trip and that was disheartening. Since I’ve returned the scale keeps going up.

This week has proved difficult. I had a rough week at work last week, but I still did my best to workout and do the best that I could with eating. I even took a spin class that I was in no condition to take because I’m so heavy.  My body hurts so much for 50 minutes of pure torture.  This morning when I stepped on the scale because it was my weigh in day, and it read 208.1 and all I could do was sob.  I was 3.1 pounds up from last week. 7 pounds heavier than I was less than 3 weeks ago.   I feel like a humongous failure. This probably sounds awful and vain and not a big deal to someone who isn’t me, but this hurt my spirit.  I feel like no matter what I do, I’m always going to be fat. 

That’s just the physical part of it all. Here’s the mental part.  When it comes to me and my friends, I’m the fat girl. In 9 times out of 10, I’m the heaviest of all the women in my group of friends. I know they don’t see me that way, but I see me that way. Even when I’m working out and happen to look around me, I’m that fat girl at the gym. Yes I’m trying to do something about it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m the heavy one.   It’s the one thing I notice when I’m out and about.  In my head all I keep hearing is “your friends are so attractive and slim, and you’re the fat one” Maybe its because I grew up in Southern California that I see myself this way, but I’m the big girl.  Even in yesterday’s class I noticed that I was the fat girl who was having problems sitting on that seat because I’m so heavy.  I feel like everyone is judging me because I’m that person.  The rational side of me says that no one is really thinking that, they’re only focused on themselves, but I’m so self conscious I feel like the world is staring at the fat chick in the class. I’m the one struggling to keep up because I’m so heavy and unathletic. 

I do my best to not behave like that woe as me I’m fat girl.  I try to make up for being big by wearing something stylish. Being the outgoing personality.  But I’m so angry at myself for being so heavy.  Although I post a bunch of pictures of myself on Facebook to document all the things I do and who I’m with and what clothes I’m wearing, I wince every time I see a picture of myself.  In every picture I see all I see is how big I am.  I was with my in-laws on Easter and my husband was showing them pictures from my friend’s wedding and our trip to Chicago. And all I could think was, I thought I looked good that day and in all these pictures I look huge. Despite wearing a black dress and wearing my favorite color, in my hair, in my shoes, all I saw was how much larger I looked compared to all my good friends. It was heartbreaking. 

Today I was doing my best to get through work and not just fall apart. I was tired, and hurting. Walking, sitting and breathing was difficult because of the pain. All I felt was the shame of all the weight I gained. I felt awful.  I know it’s in my head. Yes I’ve discussed this with a therapist in the past. But I have to say that I feel terrible that I do this to myself. I hate looking in the mirror everyday. I don’t feel attractive. Even though my husband tells me every day that he thinks that I am. I struggle with hearing the compliment. I’ve never truly felt like I was attractive.  Even when I was smaller, I never felt it.  And I hate that I struggle with this. 

Right now all I want to do is give up, because it’s so hard. But I know that I will try again tomorrow and struggle some more.  And this war in my head will continue and I’ll try to overcome it. But at this moment in time, my heart is so heavy, and so is the rest of me.  I wonder if I will ever get past this.  I know there are people who have bigger and more important problems than this. And I feel stupid for even having this problem, but that’s how I feel.