The finale! I know you’ve been waiting all night for it! Especially after Part 1 and Part 2. Well, wait no more, dear readers. (I crack myself up.)

I can’t speak for all plus size people, but I can speak for a vast majority of us when I say that when you get larger you stop shopping for clothes and shoes. It’s no longer fun and it’s definitely no longer easy. As the years went by and I expanded in size I found fewer clothes and shoes I could actually try on in brick and mortar stores; I was having to look online more often for my size. Eventually I outgrew nearly every store in the mall and in my city and was down to pretty much one and it was pretty expensive.

I started asking around and found great suggestions for affordable places online that had cute clothing. Don’t get me wrong, there were retail stores in my town and price range that carried plus size clothing, but they all seemed to be styled for much older women who didn’t care too much about fashion. I was still young, curvy, and wanted to look and feel good in my clothes. And their clothes all felt like pastel-colored polyester potato sacks, some with legs.

I was able to find respite online in a few somewhat stylish shops and, as body positivity became more mainstream, more shops and more designers added to the fold. I was eventually ordering all my clothes and shoes online (heaven forbid a regular retail store in the mall carry women’s WIDE WIDTH shoes that aren’t athletic!) and trying everything on in the privacy of my own home. When the clothing box subscription services started I was so excited to possibly have some somewhat tailored-to-me fashion help until I realized none of them went up to plus size. Being plus size is a huge PITA when it comes to clothes, shoes, and a million other things, lemme tell ya. You can’t go shopping with your other-sized girlfriends AT ALL for a fun Saturday because, well, you just end up holding their bags. And it’s a dagger to the heart every time you go into a store with anyone and they look at anything off-the-rack because you know you can’t do that (and haven’t been able to for years and may not be able to for years. But I digress…) So I learned to just stay away from stores all together. Or at least the clothing section of them. Hadn’t been in YEARS. Until Belk. And that was by accident.

A few months ago I had to go to the mall for something and I parked at Belk because it was the quickest entrance to the store I needed to get to inside. (I’m always strategic with my parking at the Galleria because I can’t stand walking around that place all day.) I raced into Belk, planning to zip through into the main mall to the store I needed to get to, when a dress caught my eye. It was a cute, short, patchwork dress of purples, pinks, and browns – perfect for the upcoming fall season. Of course I haven’t shopped at Belk, um, ever and I haven’t look at anything on an actual rack in years. I do recall them having a plus section because some of my friends have worn pretty cute plus-size items from Belk before.

Do I dare? No. But could I? Noooooo. Keep moving, Sherri. It always ends in disappointment and you just end up crying the whole way home. Is this the plus-size/women’s section? I have no idea….I’ve never been in Belk before to shop, just to run through. It’s realllllly cute though. And it’s reallllly me. Hmmmm, let’s just see. I looked around to see what section I’m in. I can’t tell at all, there are just huge displays of brand names with their clothes on display. I’ve never heard of any of these brands and I know a lot of plus-size brands, but I don’t shop at Belk so maybe they’re special to them. I start looking at the sizes of the dresses to see how they run, that should let me know if I’m in the plus-size section. XS, S, M, L, XL. Crap. I think I’m in the regular ladies department. That blows chunks. I go to another rack to check those dresses just to see if it’s this one brand. Nope, those are all the same sizing structure, too. CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP. But the dress is soooo cute!

I pull out an XL and hold it up just for giggles. It looks pretty large. I have lost some weight. Maybe I won’t cry? Let’s cross ALL.THE.THINGS and see. I take it to the dressing room and put it on.

Then I pass out.

I get back up.

And freak out.

And take this picture.

And then another.

And another.

And then take a few more because I still think I’m unconscious and I need proof that this happened in the alternate reality that I’m currently in.

Then I wake up (or something), get dressed, look at the price tag, pass out again, wake up, put the dress back, and run around the floor like a wild banshee. Then I call my friend, Jennifer, of Stellar Fashion and Fitness.

Her: Are you ok??? You sound strange.

Me: Um, I’m crying.

Her: What’s wrong???? Are you ok?

Me: I’m in Belk.

Her: Um. What happened????

Me: I tried on a dress.

Her: ????

Me: Off the rack. From the regular ladies section. It fit.

Her: SHERRI!!! THAT’S AWESOME!!!!!! I know how huge that is! I know how hard you’ve been working on everything. I know what a big deal that is! Congratulations!!! That is so wonderful! Way to go! Did you take pictures? I want to see!

Me: Thank you. I can’t believe it. I’m totally bawling in the middle of Belk right now. People keep looking at me. I look crazy.

Her: So what! Let them look!

And the conversation went on like that for a little bit longer while she helped calm me down enough so I could send her pictures and get myself home where I proceeded to tell my husband the same great news.

I didn’t tell many people about it because while I’m very surprised, pleased, and proud, I also don’t want to sound braggy. I have worked hard (yes, I know I took pills, but I did have to work on eating smaller portions, increasing my water intake, and some other things), so I didn’t want to seem boastful and showing off in a dress feels boastful, unfortunately. I wish it didn’t so I could plaster that friggin’ picture all over the place and go, “LOOK AT ME, WORLD! LOOK AT WHAT I DID!” But I won’t because it’s not about that. It’s about feeling better and healthier and I absolutely do. I still have a long way to go – I want to lose about 100 more pounds, but any loss is a good loss.

Tell me about your journey or if this has helped you at all. And thank you for sticking around for all 3 parts. 🙂

It’s 2016 and I’m at my heaviest weight ever, 336 lbs. If you missed part 1 of how I got to this point, you can catch up here.

I know I’m still beautiful and all that jazz, but it’s obvious that I’m having problems now due to my weight. My clothes don’t fit anymore, I’m having a harder time with certain movements, and public limitations are starting to rear their ugly heads. Booths in restaurants, seats at theaters, and the like are more often becoming problems for me now.

Besides the obvious physical issues, my health was of great concern. To quote my doctor at my physical that year, “You need to do something or we’re going to need to discuss surgery. And you don’t want surgery.” That’s when it hit me hard.

I had tried numerous things that just weren’t working. Weight Watchers, gyms, paleo, this, that, etc. I know it all comes down to me, but I wasn’t cutting it. She asked me if I wanted to try an appetite suppressant that WASN’T phentermine or whatever it was way back when. It was a combo of Wellbutrin (an antidepressant I had been on before) and something else. One of the side effects of Wellbutrin is appetite suppression. I was very hesitant because I’m a logical, reasonable human. I a) know all the stuff “they” say about taking pills to lose weight – I’m one of “them.” b) I don’t want to take a pill for the rest of my life to keep weight off. c) Pills are only a temporary solution. d) Is this safe? e) etc. etc. etc. I checked out the medication online and talked to my psychiatrist about it – I wanter her input on it since it contained Wellbutrin and I trust her more than my GP when it comes to these types of medications. She’s a specialist in those types of medications, after all. After doing all the research and weighing it with the options of surgery I decided to give it a try.

The medication worked wonders for me. It took a while to titrate up to the full dose and once I did I realized I didn’t need it. The full dose made me a little jittery. So I took half the prescribed dosage and lost nearly 100 pounds over all. I will admit that I didn’t do it consistently. I started the medication in 2017 and then stopped it for a bit and then started it again, seriously, at the end of 2018. I think that’s when friends and family noticed the most weight loss, in the last year. I was 336 and now I’m 245. Besides the benefits of my clothes fitting again and being able to sit in booths and at the movie theater, my doctor is very happy and all my blood work/levels look great – even ones that were a little iffy before.

I stopped the medication about two months ago to give my body a rest and reset. It’s probably not the best time to do it – right at the holidays – but I wanted to take a break and also see if I would eat everything in sight if I wasn’t on it. I’m happy to report that while I’m a little hungrier than I was before, I’ve still been able to maintain small meals and intermittent fasting (which I practice healthily). Part of the extra hunger comes from a new medication that I recently started for something else – one of the side effects is increased hunger. So yeah, not the greatest time to stop my other medication either, but I can do it.

Now we’re getting to the good part! WHY DID I CRY IN BELK, YOU ASK? Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you. Turns out, there’s a part 3!

A disclaimer before I start this post: I didn’t get my post up yesterday so this is another twofer. It works out well though, because this is a long story so it’s split into two posts.

I’ve had a loooooooong, harried roller coaster journey with my weight, as have many of my friends. I’ve always thought I was a big girl, even in high school when it is painfully evident in pictures (now) that I’m quite thin. I’ve always been what I considered big boned, but I don’t even what that really means anymore. I think it means I have a big frame and I do consider myself to have one.

During my first marriage I was a little on the heavy side, but not large by any means. I think I fluctuated between 145 and 165 during the 10 years I was married. Of course I thought I was a cow. I tried hard to lose or maintain my current weight and definitely not gain more, and my ex did his part to help; he did not want a cow for a wife. After I got divorced, I gained some weight and resigned myself to the fact that this was my new body. I don’t remember what it was, but likely around 200 or so.

Eight years later I remarried and I think I was at like 235 for the first few years of our marriage. Then I turned 40 in 2015, and it happened, just like everyone said it would. When people say the minute you hit 40 it’s that much harder to lose weight, they are NOT kidding around. Everything I had done prior to 40 to either maintain or lose weight did not work anymore and the pounds just started compounding. By 2016 I had blown up to 336 pounds.

To be continued……