My NSV: "The Dress" (with pics!)

So I can't say I'm officially a "success story" yet, in my mind anyway, because I still have a ways to go...BUT I can say that I had my biggest non-scale victory so far this weekend. I started in January of this year at a size 20, which was actually down from my biggest...a size 24. I've done the roller coaster thing before, lose 50, gain 60, lose 50, gain 30...over and over and over, but for some reason this year was just different. I can't pinpoint it, I can't say I had an "ah ha" moment, but this is it. This is the year for me to accomplish everything I've wanted. Here's to the first mini-victory of my year.

For years I have window shopped at White House Black Market without going in, knowing that nothing they had would fit me. It was horrible because I always LOVE their clothes, and the black, white and (usually) red color scheme has always been exactly what I loved. This weekend I was walking by the window, and a dress just called to me. It was perfect. Basic, without being too basic, plain but not boring. It was "the one". I walked by the window and fell in love.

I'd recently put myself on a financial diet in a last ditch effort to save money towards my upcoming home purchase, so I mentally slapped the hand that was reaching out toward that glorious dress and turned away. I walked away, got in the car, and went about my business. Somehow, three hours later, I found myself again in front of the store window, looking at that amazing dress. With some encouragement from outside sources, I broke down and went in the store. I decided before looking that if it was over $100 or they didn't have it within 1 size of the size I needed, I'd be abandoning my dress to live a sad and lonely life in the window forever. I'd almost convinced myself that the dress would be better off living with someone else, because for sure they could do it more justice than I could.

A whirlwind minute and one windblown chatty salesperson later, I found myself alone with "the dress" in the largest size they had available-- a 12-- in the miniscule dressing room. Alone with the dress all I could do was stare. Of course, part of that may be because the dressing room was so small it felt like I was auditioning for the part of exploding sausage and afraid to remove any clothing for fear that rolls and parts would in fact start to explode through the curtain door, but I digress. I must have stared at the dress for longer than I thought, because the loquacious sales lady had time to come back and check to see if I had strangled myself with the straps while wrangling my rolls into this dress that just couldn't possibly be large enough to fit me.

Jolted out of my contemplation I burst into action. Off went my jeans and top, discarded in a pile onto the tiny floor, just to be stepped on and squashed into a jumbled mess. I reverently unzipped the dress and slowly took it from the hanger, one strap at a time. After some consideration I decided that although I am top heavy, I am also bottom heavy and my best bet was to try for the over-the-top dressing option. I pulled the dress on over my head, and it slid easily down into place...almost too easily. I reached behind myself to zip it up and came to the conclusion that I do not have any kind of future as a contortionist, and stopped with it zipped halfway. I assumed it couldn't zip any further, and was still excited to see that I could zip it at all! I mean, really, I wear plus sized clothes, right? No way could this dress possibly zip all the way. But hey, it fit over my gigantic chest AND my bubble butt and (as they've been so lovingly referred to) my child-bearing hips! Success!

About the time that I was surveying myself in the mirror, dreaming of the day that the dress would fit, my verbose little saleslady friend returned and instead of asking how I was doing just decided to let herself right in. She may have thought I'd killed myself in the process of trying on a dress that was obviously too small for me, and came to retrieve the dress and other evidence before calling 911. She smiled with her perky little self and said, "Hey, let me get that for you! These zippers are always so hard to reach!" and reached over...and zipped the zipper! All the way! I was doing a little happy dance in my head while she turned me around and said, "Oh my...oh no, this is the wrong size for you! Let me go get you a better one!"

As she practically ran from the room my face began to heat and I considered that I must have been spilling out of the dress somewhere that I couldn't tell, or maybe she hadn't zipped it at all--maybe that noise was a rip! Before I could grab my clothes and run, she returned with another size...a size 10! She had to be senseless, blind, delusional, or just recently escaped from Eastern State, the local mental hospital. There was no way. She had me out of one dress and into the other in half a breath, turned me around and zipped............all the way! As she stepped me out in front of the full length mirror in the hallway, I was afraid to breathe for the fact that I might break the dress. She was so excited for me, and started calling other people over...I thought perhaps it was some sort of cruel joke where they would start pointing and laughing at the fat cow trying on a dress for a skinnier girl...and everyone else smiled and was happy and the compliments just kept flowing! I was scared to look, but when I finally opened my eyes and looked in the mirror...holy cow! I looked...good! The dress really was just as awesome as it was on the mannequin...or even better, because it was on ME!

No coercion was necessary, that dress was going home with me. And there it will stay, in a size 10, until I have lost enough weight that it sags, bags and falls off of me and just can't be altered to fit any longer...because it is perfect.

Now for what you really came for, if I'm smart enough to get them to work...the pictures!




TL;DR: I was extra fat, lost some weight, bought an awesome dress. Now for the pictures!


ETA: Even better...it was on sale! Only $65!


Me Christmas 2011, approximately 298 pounds, size 24:




Me in "The Dress", approximately 207 pounds, size 10: