I’ll be the first to admit that fashion is not one of my strong suits. I can get dressed up and look decent when I need to but on a day-to-day basis, I tend to live in jeans and my favorite oversized fleece. There are some days where I don’t have to be anywhere and the kids and I are home doing school, practicing instruments, and just doing life.

I really love those days.

However, there are days where I’m not just hanging out at home. Sometimes I forget (or ignore) that fact and still don’t put on clothes that fit very well. Usually I don’t get my picture made on such an occasion but recently I did. And then I took another picture later that very day just to remind myself that yes, clothes that fit make a difference in how you look and how you feel no matter what size you are.

My daughter and I went to Paducah, KY recently and spent some time roaming around the city. We went to a little local pizza joint and had lunch and then visited the National Quilt Museum. (If you love textiles and are ever in the area, it is 100 percent worth the price of admission.)

Anyway, I wanted to visit the museum all morning and my daughter wasn’t sure whether it would be any good. So when we got near the museum and decided to go in, I told her, “Take my picture in front of the museum and we will send it to your dad to prove I finally got to see it!” So she did.

And here is Exhibit Number One for why clothes that fit make a difference in how you look and feel:

That’s not the best look I’ve ever had. The sweater, while a color other than black, is not well fitted. And that’s the only nice thing I can say about it. The pants are too long, too flared for the oversized sweater, and the shoes, well, I’ll just say they aren’t flattering.

When I saw the picture I told my daughter, “Wow, that’s a really terrible outfit. Why didn’t you tell me how bad it looks?” She laughed and said I looked fine.

Fine.

Well, needless to say I spent the rest of the day clomping around in my not great outfit feeling oversized and frumpy.

That evening we went out and got dressed up. I had brought along this outfit to wear for the evening. Just for fun, I took a rare selfie in the hotel mirror. Suffice it to say, I immediately thought of a blog post on wearing clothes that fit.

As you can see, it fits properly and I even did my hair and makeup.

I left the hotel room feeling good about myself and the frump feeling was gone. It was a little reminder to me, who isn’t a fashionista even though I enjoy shopping at TJMaxx, to put some thought into what I’m wearing and how it makes me feel.

When I was 300 pounds I dressed poorly most of the time and my feelings about myself mirrored how I looked. I didn’t try and find clothes that fit my body properly because I thought, “Who cares? No one really looks at me.”

I wore clothes like this:

And this:

As I lost weight I discovered that clothing that fit me properly not only made me look better on the outside but feel better on the inside. Here’s an outfit I wore after losing a substantial amount of weight. I even began wearing belts.

Now, I’m not saying that you always have to wear super fitted clothing but I want to encourage you to wear clothes that fit you properly and make you feel good about yourself.

And while I encourage you to do that, I will take my own advice and make more of an effort to not dress like a frump!

Do you find that wearing clothes that fit makes you feel better about yourself? Diane

(c) Diane Carbonell Weight Loss Expert – Read entire story here.