Answer me this...

If the average American woman is 5'4", somewhere between 145-163 lbs, and wears a size 14, why is that once you hit double digit clothing sizes, you are technically "plus" sized?
For all you skinny minis out there, who have never seen double digits on a clothing tag other than the cost, perhaps we should call you minus sized and the rest of us can just be regular.

Growing up, I always ranged between 8-14 depending on the garment. In later years, I've gone up to a 16 (and this last pregnancy does not count b/c I'm still not sure what type of clothes I was in at the end--basically a muumuu). It wasn't until just recently, as I've moved out of 16s and into a loose 14, that I realized that even in my "skinny" days of being a teen or in my early twenties (when I did look GOOD), I was still plus sized. Granted, I did think (and still do) that a 16 is big. Actually, I take that back. I think I thought that any size you could buy off the rack in the mainstream section of a store was average. But that's around where I thought plus sizes started. Not at a 10. Isn't a 10 supposed to be perfect?!

So WTF? Why even bother losing the weight? It seems like I'm fight a losing battle. If, after it's all said and done, and I get back to my premarital weight, I will have lost 100lbs from the day I delivered the baby to that goal weight. And I'll still be plus sized!
But I'll tell you why I'm doing it. Because I just can't stand feeling like I look fat. (Oh yeah and all that healthier way of life crap.) I want to get back to what I see in my head. The way I used to look is what I think of when I think of myself. And it comes as a bitter kick up the backside when I realize that what I look like to myself is not what everyone else sees now. What's worse is that all the people I've met since being married only know me stout. There are less and less people in my daily life who knew me back when.

But going back to my rant on clothing. If stores are now using vanity sizing, where they cut clothes bigger but put a smaller number on the tag, what the dickens is a size 16 really? I mean am I sharing a habitat with Shamu? Should I just put a potato sack on and call it quits?
If I do get back (well really, when I get back) down to a 10, I'll still technically be plus sized. And that 10 is probably what was a 14 ten years ago. So where do I stand? Preferably not too close to a full size mirror, that's where!

Well the writing was on the wall. This little event has been a burr up my backside since it happened: when I was about 20, I went into a department store to buy a pair of brown leather knee high boots (back when they were an abosolute must have for college girls) and I remember having to squeeze my calves into the pair I wanted. I never used to think I had fat legs (at least not from the knee down). I remember the sales woman telling me that buying boots is hard for women with plus sized calves! I remember looking at her and saying that I didn't know that's what you called the legs of a collegiate varsity athlete (never mind that I'd stopped competitively rowing the year before). When I went to pay for them (b/c after that I damn well made sure they fit), I told the cashier that no one had helped me...haha working on commission's a bitch.
Shoulda read the memo that day...I'm plus size. Mo'nique watch out, I am PHAT and lovin' it.