Fat Boy Slimming #2 - The Joy of Shopping · Real Men Real Style Community

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Fat Boy Slimming #2 - The Joy of Shopping

(This is part 2 of a series of posts discussing my thoughts on my current “glowing up while slimming down” journey.)

Clothes shopping, as a fat man, isn’t joyous.

Before I get lynched in the comments, let me clarify. By “clothes shopping”, I mean in-person high-street retail shopping. Y’know, the bread and butter clothes shopping experience, partly dictated by finances. I’m sure, with the right billfold and a stacked rolladex, employing a suite of bespoke artisans to tailor-drape me in fibrous regality would be quite the uplifting moment. Alas, funds allow what funds allow, and being fat and hitting the outlet village can be sobering at best, and dehumanising at worst.

There’s a few reasons for this. The main reason is lack of options.

Stores, in their wisdom, keep stock to cater to a bell curve. The majority of their lines will bell curve their garments, with the biggest fractions for those median-shaped people that surround us all. Average height, build, and so on. Sure, there’ll be some outliers to the sizes, curving down. But that means us “extremes” will have a playbook of maybe one or two items to choose from, while “normies” will have the whole store. And if Big Alan has been in an hour earlier and bought a pair of trousers, you’re just bang out of luck.

(I realise there may be a UK filter on this comment. Presumably in the US, there’s a much wider and flatter profile of stock options, with the bell curve topping at some number of XLs. Everything is bigger and better there, right?)

So the main stores have limited scope. What of shops that cater entirely to the Higher and Mightier folk out there? I mean yes, these are okay, but they are few and far between, and the ones in the UK at least seem largely generic in their designs. They also, in my experience, make a few assumptions in ratio that means people like the Historical Me miss out. Tall and Wide? All good. Small and Skinny? Covered. But us Short Kings with Extensive Circumference are told to just roll on by.

The barriers to joy with this setup are clear, but there’s an insidious little extra level. At my peak, I fell into this void. Bluntly put, with my size and shape, there were actually no stores at all that had stocked my combination of measurements. I was either two inches too wide or two inches too short to have ANYTHING stocked that would even vaguely fit. “Sorry sir,” this fact seemed to sneer, “there’s nothing here for the likes of YOU. May I suggest the tarpaulin emporium next door?”

That kind of negativity did feed the unfriendly mental self image. Having to exclusively buy all my clothes from the internet, unable to test fit anything without a rigmarole, definitely leant deep into the “just buy something big and that’ll do” mindset. Vicious circles, self fulfilling, spiralling down. It’s no wonder that clothes shopping became something to dread.

Now, seven stones lighter? It’s much brighter. Clothes shops have options for me, multiple fits, new designs and looks. Staff are bright and helpful, which I’m sure they always were; fat cash is just as welcome as thin cash, after all. I’m finding I can spend whole afternoons in clothing stores, trying styles and cuts and fabrics and forms. I’m exploring my new shape, and having a blast doing it.

(As an aside: When I started my weight loss journey, I promised myself that if I hit my ideal weight, I’d treat myself to a perfectly fitted pair of Levi 501s. At my girth, they were Grail Jeans, a pipe dream. Now I’m nearly there, I’ve investigated their range… only to discover they don’t stock anything in my inside leg size! I’m absolutely fuming, and have started a Short Bloke Boycott of the company in protest. Stand on a box and raise your hand if you’re with me!)

There are real benefits to losing weight: health, fitness, self image, mental wellbeing. There are a host of intangible benefits too. And rediscovering the Joy of Shopping should be considered an absolute win.

I just wish my bank balance felt the same.

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