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What’s Size Got To Do With It?

by | Aug 1, 2023 | Uncategorized

In my free group, somebody said they didn’t want to buy clothes or order clothes online because of vanity sizing. I personally love vanity sizing. I mean, what’s not to love about it? 

This has been going on for a long time. In about 2006 I remember going into a store and like size two shorts felt kind of baggy. Now, when I look back on it, I was competing on stage at that point in my life and I was actually very small. But in my mind, I was like, there’s no way. The size two shorts should probably be a size eight. I was actually mad. I’m like, this is not right. 

They’re trying to fool the consumer. 

In fact, I think this has been going on a long time. If you’re in your 40s and 50s you probably remember, maybe your mom’s clothes or as you were going through high school your mom, who was a size eight, her clothes are probably  a size two now. So it’s been I think going on for a while where manufacturers either all got together or something has changed.

Americans are getting bigger, we’re getting more supersized. The clothing manufacturers are like the food manufacturers, they don’t want us to feel bad. They want to make us buy more things. If I went to the store and I didn’t fit into any of the clothes so I didn’t buy anything, well that’s a problem. Now I can go buy a pair of jeans, they’re super stretchy, and maybe I can size down. That’s the new thing, and again, I don’t hate it. 

If I go to Old Navy because I’m buying my kids some clothes and I buy something for me there, I certainly don’t try it on. I might buy a sports bra or a t-shirt or something like that. I might buy just a one off thing where I buy them all their clothes there. Everything else I just buy online, but it wasn’t until seven or eight months ago that I started to buy from these boutiques that do regular live shopping. I’m going to tell you, I’m a fan. I think it’s entertaining. I think it’s very helpful to see clothes on a person. They look a lot different than when it’s just a picture of clothes. 

What I found fascinating about it is that a lot of the boutiques do cater to all sizes and are very size inclusive. If a top or something doesn’t come in any size bigger than a large, the boutique owner or the person doing the live feels, like I’m really sorry you know we didn’t there’s not a full size run of this. Or this manufacturer typically only makes these sizes. I did also notice a lot of clothes in general like the tops and the sweaters and things like that are oversized. So if you are let’s say really a size large, well good news, the medium will fit you or the small will fit you. Interesting size psychology there. 

With all of the jeans, all of the denim, there seems to be a lot of excitement when the particular pair of jeans that you can size down one. Good news ladies, you can size down one. If you want you know an even more locked and loaded fit you can size down two. It is fascinating to me.

It’s very interesting that that’s part of the allure. If I can buy jeans that the label says they’re two sizes smaller than I normally take, well Dang, I’m hot. I’m awesome. This feels good. And I think it’s a win. 

Occasionally, they’ll come across a pair of jeans that don’t fit that well. And that are a size up, go up a size. I found that to be fascinating also because I bet not a lot of women want to order one size up, even though nothing’s changed in their own body. It’s not like you are now one size up, because the tag in your clothes is one size up but this particular pair of jeans runs a certain way. They run a little bit small in the waist, it’s a little bit tight jeans, the jeans are a little bit more structured, they have a little less stretch, they are XYZ, whatever it is, and the fit advice is to order a size up. Then it’s almost like womp, womp, womp. No one wants that.

It’s so much like the scale. If I get on the scale, and it says that number I want it to say or less, then I’m awesome. Life is good. Everything’s great. If the scale doesn’t say what I want, or is up, there’s a problem. This isn’t good. I’m not good. I’ve done something wrong. I need to fix this immediately.

Why are we talking about this?

One, I just want to normalize. 

I want to normalize it all. I want to normalize how our brains work. If you where you’re like, Whoo, I’m wearing a size three, and nothing has changed at all. I’m still the same person I was. Who cares, enjoy it. There’s nothing wrong with liking the size in your clothes. 

I just also want to tell you, sometimes we’ll go and try on a pair of pants in the same size that just fit differently. They feel a little tighter or they are just uncomfortable. 

You can begin to wonder;

  • Did I gain weight? 
  • Is there something wrong with me? 
  • Am I going to gain it all back and we start to get that sort of fear and loathing right? 

We get that anxiety.

I just want to tell you, slow down. You can have a lot of different sizes in your closet that you wear currently. 

I’m looking at my jeans collection because now I’m a denim junkie. Sometimes, even though the fitted by says to size down two, I don’t. I just size down one. I don’t care if my clothes are zero or one or two or three or four or five or six or seven because I have actually all those sizes right now in jeans that I could wear. Zero to seven, maybe even an eight or nine to be perfectly honest, if I go through all my clothes. It’s all fascinating to me. 

I don’t feel any more special when I wear the zero versus the three or the four or the five or the six. I don’t. I just look to say, are these comfortable? Do I like how they look? I don’t get too hung up on the size, but you might and that is okay. 

I think what is fun about getting dressed these days and having all different sizes available. Whether it is small, medium, large, extra large, 1x, 2x, 3x, I think that’s great. 

I love size inclusivity. 

I love that women of any size can find clothes they love. I do. I am all for it. I don’t think you have to or should wait till you lose weight or lose all the weight or deserve it to have clothes in your closet that make you feel good. 

I think in the last seven months, I have more color in my wardrobe. I’ve tried new things. I’m enjoying getting dressed. And you know why? It makes me feel good. Most people don’t ever see me. I work from home. I’m a homebody. I don’t go anywhere. Nobody notices except me. And that’s all that matters.

If this is something similar for you, why not spend a little time, energy and money finding clothes that you like? Clothes that make you feel good? Because it’s out there. It’s size inclusivity in most of these boutiques. I’m just late to the game on most things.

I don’t spend a lot of time on tiktok because it feels a little unsafe there. But you know, Instagram reels or Facebook reels. It’s just so interesting to see many women in all different sizes, shapes, forms. I guess a new thing right now, when you talk about sizing, is this idea of mid sized. I’ve seen a lot of videos where women are saying that they’re mid sized. I’m like mid sized? Then they tell me they’re like a size 16. I’ve only heard mid size as a car. This is a whole new thing. 

My life is about helping women lose weight, I’m really all about helping women feel good, feel better about themselves. Helping them like themselves at any size because here’s the deal, life is not better over there. Life doesn’t get magically better in a different size clothes or when the scale goes down or when people say you look skinny. It just isn’t that way.

I think we want to live our lives right now. 

Dress ourselves in the clothes that make us happy. Don’t worry about what size it is. Do you like it? Does it fit well? Does it make you feel good? Because you can find anything in any size right now. Which is a beautiful thing. I know some people could argue that’s not healthy. If someone is in a double x, who cares? None of your business what size someone is or what body they’re in. 

Ultimately, like my mission, is helping women feel better. I don’t put a lot of stock into whether your jeans say their size zero or three or five or seven or 52 or whatever. If you’re feeling good, and you like yourself, and you’re happy, then I’m happy. If you don’t feel good. If you don’t feel like you’re accomplishing your goals, if you’re not living the life you want, if you want to make any changes at all in your body. I’m for that too.

I’m not here to tell everybody, hey, guess what, if you’re not losing weight, you should. If you don’t want to lose weight, you should want to lose weight. Everybody who’s not a size zero is a size too big. I mean, let’s be real. I’m not a small person. How I have any jeans that are a size zero is beyond me. I’m just going to enjoy it. I don’t care if it’s vanity sizing. F*ck that. I don’t care. I mean, I don’t. The thing about sizing in your clothes, it’s not like you wear it on the outside. It’s not like all over the jeans it says this is the size zero. Nobody gives a f*ck. It’s kind of like whatever the scale says, you’re not going to put it on a poster board or put it on a necklace and wear it around your neck. 

In summary, I want to tell you if you like shopping online, but you’re a little nervous about buying things, there are a lot of boutiques out there. They do a lot of fit advice. They’re very size inclusive, fun, and friendly. 

The ones I shop the most, in case you’re interested: 

  • Freckled Poppy Boutique.
  • MOCO Boutique

Those are my two go-tos. 

They have all different kinds of clothes; athleisure wear, lots of denim shoes, accessories, etc.  Freckled Poppy has a very easy return policy if it doesn’t work for you. 

I put it out there because I want you to like what’s in your closet. I want you to wear things that make you feel good, and not worry about the vanity sizing or if it’s accurate sizing or if you really should be in a bigger size or a smaller size. Whatever size that you can feel good in. Your body, while you’re working on maybe improving it, maybe changing it, becoming healthier.

Obviously, when we do lose weight, we do lose body fat, and we do work on retaining, or growing more muscle mass, we’re actually helping ourselves with our overall quality of life and longevity. Because someone out there wants you to be around for a really long time in your hot jeans in your super cool denim no matter what size it is. 

So with that happy online shopping. Enjoy getting dressed in the morning. Even if you just buy a couple things right now to fit your body and that when you look in the mirror, you’re like, girl, that is cute. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. 

I’m just going to embrace all the times that I can size down and have jeans in all the different sizes. 

ABOUT THE HOST

Bonnie Lefrak is a Life & Body Transformation Expert and Founder of Selfmade, a program designed to help you tackle the physical aspects of health and weight loss as well as the beliefs and thoughts that drive our habits and behaviors. It is her goal to help women create certainty in their own lives, their own results, and their own abilities.

Weight loss is not about the one “right” diet – it is about MUCH more than that. Weight loss is not about the one “right” workout. Weight loss is not about being positive and putting a big smile on.

Weight loss is about FEELINGS. All of them. Not trying to bury them or hide from them but knowing and allowing the full human experience. Weight loss is not about grinding hustling and will powering your way to some end line. Transformation (when done well) is done from the inside out.

By addressing both the physical and mental aspects of dieting and weight loss, she has coached thousands of women ages 30-55+ from all over and helped them ditch the mindsets that are holding them back, achieve permanent weight loss, and get the bangin’ body of their dreams.

Bonnie is an expert at Demystifying weight loss. She helps you u****k your diet brain. She is on a mission to help women love themselves, to find PEACE in the process of losing weight, taking care of themselves, and leveraging the power they do have to become who and want they want right now.

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