How much weight did you lose to drop a dress size?

This varies so much from person to person.

I'm 5'7"
At my heaviest (~163) I really needed to go up a size. In US (aka vanity) sizing, I really needed to be an 8/10 (but refused to buy new clothes. Now I'm hovering around 155, but in a recomp. When I started recomp in late November I was wearing the same pants I am now (6), they just fit a little better now (less than 2 pounds lost on the scale though).

The last time I fit into my size 4 jeans was when I was around 130, BUT, I had lost a LOT of muscle at that point (not working out, plus months of being non-weight-bearing on one leg meant that leg wasted away to literally nothing - my arm was bigger than my calf on that leg ).

I'll be interested to see when I fit back into the 4s again what the scale will say. Busting my butt at the gym (need to get back into shape for racing and then improve from there), so my come back this time around is a little different since I know I'm recomping a fair bit compared to my past.

ebony__ wrote: »

How much did you have to lose before you went down a dress size? ?

I lost about 50 lbs from a 4x/3x to a 3x/2x and 330-280. I carry my excess weight in my midsection and boobs but I am not too heavy.. I have some fat in my lower body. I can still wear some of the bigger sizes though.

I honestly think height also comes into play. I'm 4'11" and for me dropping weight makes a huge difference because it's coming from a smaller area. For someone taller, dropping a lot of weight all over isn't going to make a huge difference the way it does for me. That said, I lost 30 lbs and went from a size 8 to a size 0/2. I'm sitting at 120 lbs currently, but as someone else said it depends where you carry it.

I live in a Mediterranean country that has a lot of international chain retailers but no Torrid or Lane Bryant or anything like that. Similarly, the American chains that are here ship their collections without the plus-sized sections of the line. As a result I spent the last 3 years before I joined MFP living in leggings and huge sweatshirts and can only answer that I estimate it would have taken about 25 pounds to go from that to 'any normal clothes'. I don't know exactly because I accidentally overshot. They have up to about a UK 14/US 10 here, and by the time I was brave enough to try on real jeans (though yes, with stretch) and a real flannel shirt I was in the equivalent of about a UK 12 in each. I was 40 pounds down by then.

I'm down by another 8 pounds now and could get into a UK 10 in those same jeans ... but for financial reasons won't buy a new pair until I'm in a UK 8/US 4. I did, just this week, try on the UK 8 out of curiosity and I can get them up TO my hips but not over them, and couldn't button them to save my life. As others have pointed out, though, as you get slimmer it takes fewer pounds to drop sizes, and I suspect I'll be in the UK 8 within 10 more pounds. Very possibly less.

HDBKLM wrote: »

I live in a Mediterranean country that has a lot of international chain retailers but no Torrid or Lane Bryant or anything like that. Similarly, the American chains that are here ship their collections without the plus-sized sections of the line. As a result I spent the last 3 years before I joined MFP living in leggings and huge sweatshirts and can only answer that I estimate it would have taken about 25 pounds to go from that to 'any normal clothes'. I don't know exactly because I accidentally overshot. They have up to about a UK 14/US 10 here, and by the time I was brave enough to try on real jeans (though yes, with stretch) and a real flannel shirt I was in the equivalent of about a UK 12 in each. I was 40 pounds down by then.

I'm down by another 8 pounds now and could get into a UK 10 in those same jeans ... but for financial reasons won't buy a new pair until I'm in a UK 8/US 4. I did, just this week, try on the UK 8 out of curiosity and I can get them up TO my hips but not over them, and couldn't button them to save my life. As others have pointed out, though, as you get slimmer it takes fewer pounds to drop sizes, and I suspect I'll be in the UK 8 within 10 more pounds. Very possibly less.

Oops brain fart. It doesn't matter for the purposes of this thread but notch everything up when reading this post in the future; e.g., stores usually have up to UK 18/US 14, not UK 14/US 10. And I'm currently aiming for (but can't button) a UK 10/US 6 not a UK 8. I must have been tired when I posted this.