Body types

I can appreciate all body types. Really -- I can; I am no runway model myself, after all. In fact, I am approximately 20 pounds overweight -- and I can't even blame this on the baby yet. Things wiggle when I walk that are not supposed to be wiggling; Sarah once pointed out that my butt jiggles when I brush my teeth (this has long been my standard by which to judge whether I am overweight).

BUT.

I am still at a complete loss at to why people who are extremely overweight, or extremely underweight, show off too much surface area (relative to the amount of surface area they have available to them). I normally don't bother with disclaimers because I tend to feel that if you are not self-aware and cannot laugh at your shortcomings, I am certainly not going to cater to your delusional fantasies about your true reality. But for some people's sake, I will at least say -- WE NEED TO LAUGH AT OURSELVES. GOD MADE US THIS WAY, AND HAS AN OBVIOUS SENSE OF HUMOR. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the crazy ride my brain will take you on.

There are a few classes of clothing that can be used by which to assess if one has appropriately dressed for their body type.

SHORTS:
I was at Kohl's looking for summer maternity clothes. They had about two pairs of shorts, one kind of tank top, and two t-shirts which were made from something similar to cheesecloth (because my bellybutton won't be sticking out enough in 5 months?) I looked at the shorts. I have fat legs. Its a fact. They wobble, and spread out to unmeasureable widths when I sit down. If I sit on the edge of a chair, the flab hangs down about 6 inches below the chair's seat (I happened to notice this in a mirror on the back of a doctor's office door last year -- its really true). I expected that most people who are pregnant are not the stereotypical basketball-type pregnant people. Most people tend to gain a little flab all over the place. On top of my already flabby legs, this little extra flab creates a stunningly flabby effect at around 5 months of pregnancy. I bent over to look at the maternity shorts and realized that the shorts part of them was approximately 3 inches long. That means that when I would sit wearing these shorts, they would rapidly disappear into the great unknown, giving the impression that I was wearing no bottoms whatsoever. Seriously, girls. The stretchy part was actually larger than the denimy part. I could buy pantyhose and wrap those around my butt and achieve the same effect. Now, back to my point -- these shorts would be inappropriate for me to buy (as well as for someone with even a noticeable caboose when NOT pregnant). Not only would these be nauseating when NOT pregnant, but any slight weight gain would instantly render them atrocious unacceptable. Yet the racks were nearly empty. I can appreciate wanting to desperately grab onto that last remaining shred of femininity while growing larger each day, but then -- reality must also play a part in shopping ventures. These shorts would be horrendously inappropriate for someone with flabby legs. The denim part simply would not be able to withstand the pressure of all that flab needing somewhere to spread.

TANK TOPS:
There are several types of tank tops. One type is the normal, Lands' End, fit-under-the-arms-but-not fat-roll-hugging loose type. Another is the spaghetti strap type with the built-in "shelf bra" (have never known what this means; I am just certain that my boobs do not SHELVE appropriately) that hugs your fat rolls all the way down to your waist (and beyond). The last type is the trying-to-be-sexy-but-made-in-a-sweatshop type; these are cute the first day, but rapidly deteriorate following the first hot day or trip through a washer. This last type tends to sag in the armpits, allowing boob material to squish out, and stretch in the neckline, allowing aforementioned boob material to be very visible when bending over to pick up a kid (or another pail of ice cream from the freezer section at Pig).

Let's talk about tank tops. I have found maybe two tank tops in my entire life that truly suit my body type. I got them at Fashion Bug for $9.99 each. They don't stretch out, they don't suck onto my fat rolls, and they don't have a built-in SHELF. These, I would daresay, would be appropriate for most body types. But -- as all girls knows -- once you find something that works, they discontinue it. So they are no longer made (remind me to call that Indonesian sweatshop later...) My alternatives are not so hot. The tank tops I saw in the maternity department that fateful day at Kohl's were a far cry from being acceptable. First of all -- what is UP with the see-through material fad?? It's a TANK TOP -- it's going to be worn when its HOT -- I do not WANT to LAYER it with three other tank tops in order to create a suitably opaque surface! I would have to say that if you try on a tank top and you can see the stitching in the little bow on the front of your bra or the printing on the tag sticking down in back, its too thin.

Spaghetti strap tanks. Where to begin. I will eliminate the discussion of spaghetti strap tanks without the SHELF, because they don't exist anymore. So -- spaghetti strap tanks with the SHELF. Everyone knows you are not wearing a bra. Period. Its a given (see above reason). So I think it is human nature to watch for something to fall out during normal daily activities. In my case, my boobs have doubled in size in the past month and I believe that a previously worn spaghetti strap tank would definitely be hard-pressed to do its containing job. Also, these are supposed to be worn by people with small boobs and 2% body fat, so they tend to wrap snugly around each smidgen of every fat roll all the way to the bottom (including that one that lops over the waistband of the too-tight, but-I-want-to-look-sexy-in-my-lowcut-jeans). If these are coupled with the above maternity short-shorts, there is a good possiblity of looking like a huge balloon not wearing pants and ready to burst at any moment (with a big bellybutton).

PANTS:
This category is a little more forgiving because you can hide a lot-o-lovin' in a good pair of jeans. My main point in this category is the jeans that are so low-cut the zipper is about 1 1/2-inches long -- like the kind where you rip the tips of your nails up trying to grab onto the pull in order to zip them. The area just superior to the hips is where all the fat is supposed to squish in dire situation. If this area is severely minimized, where does all that flab go?? UP and OUT. Yeah -- maybe you (with the help of three friends) can get these jeans on and zipped, but what do you think happens when you stand up, or -- heaven-forbid -- bend over?? That fat has to go somewhere! And it does! I loooooooooove watching someone stiffly walk around in their tight but-aren't-I-so-sexy jeans with the 3-4 inch lop over the top of the jeans. Coupled with a spaghetti strap tank top to securely caress the same lops -- this would have to be the EPITOME of not dressing for your body type. Denial or not; comfortable-with-your-body-type or not, this outfit combo shows just a little to much to everyone else behind you.

I only wear jeans that are loose enough on top to tuck in my fat rolls, especially while sitting down. Like in church. After settling comfortably into my chair for the sermon, the first thing I do is make sure that the fat roll lopping over the front of my jeans is tucked into the waistband. This would not be possible if that waistband is 4-5 inches lower. I may have to bend over a little more to make sure it stays securely tucked, but I will take the height compromise over the fat roll display anyday.

SHOES:
People tend to think that short people wear heels to make them feel taller. Or that any given individual will wear them to feel as though their legs appear "tighter" or "slimmer". But I have noticed that there is a definite weight-class (not height class) which should be wearing heels. As a paramedic I tend to notice things that appear dangerous, or perhaps just slightly wrong for some unknown reason. One thing I have repeatedly noticed is large people wearing heels. Wider heels does not give the same impression of impending doom, but the standard skinnier heels are what I am talking about here. In order to provide an exaggerated visual of what I am talking about -- let's think about an elephant (I SAID EXAGGERATED!) standing on toothpicks. Something has got to give. Also, in proportion to its body mass, an elephant's legs do appear to be rather lean. But this still does not betray the spindliness of the toothpicks. Something is horribly off-balance and will quickly become dangerous in any one of a number of variables changes.

I do not wear heels. And this is not just because I am not nearly coordinated enough to master the walking process. I am simply aware that if I were to wear them, I would appear frighteningly close to that elephant we imagined above. It's simply not proportional. Fat legs + spindly heels = CRASH. There's me on the ground, fat legs spread out, rolls lopping over my too-low-cut short-shorts, and boob material globbing out of the SHELF. (In retrospect this outfit would make me look like an unsuccessful hooker as well........ I might as well add some blue eyeshadow to the outfit.)

OTHER SHIRTS:
This category basically includes two types of shirts: those with functional buttons and those without functional buttons. WITH: Everyone knows that about 80% of guys like boobs. BUT! That does not mean that the 98% of girls who do NOT want to see them should be exposed to them at the same. There may be a time and place for boobage, but I can think of a few places when it is NOT the time: city park playground, church, funeral, grocery store (I didn't include Wal-Mart because everyone knows that being sexy at Wal-Mart rocks). One common trick of too-much-boobage wearers, is the push-up bra. Everyone thinks that a push-up bra was intended to boost your boobs to make it look like you have some, when in reality -- it simply gathers all that flab that is now unable to smoosh out across the above SHELF, and boost it to greater heights. Boobs are boobs; flab is flab. The two should not be interchanged. This is an especially prominent problem with some of today's fashions: you wear the spaghetti strap tank under your functionally zippered/buttoned outer shirt, which is unzipped/unbuttoned just low enough to reveal some form of mushy body tissue. It can be reasonably deduced by the remainder of your body type as to whether this smooshage is actual boob material, or if it is truly displaced flab -- so who do you think you are trying to fool? Someone who weighs 52 pounds and has big boobs -- it's probably boob tissue. Someone who weighs 250 pounds and has big boobs -- wellllllll..... there is a good possibility it is a higher percentage of flab rather than pure boob.

And lastly, shirts without functional buttons. The advantage of wearing shirts like this is that the boobs generally remain where they are supposed to be. Nothing is being pushed in or out or up (at least in that region). But these shirts tend to cause some havoc with the upper arms. For instance: a common t-shirt. There was a phase of these shirts that included short elastic arms. Where to start..... I have fat arms. This is the result of no longer spending 24 hours in a row lifting huge, dead-weight people over and over and over and over again. My huge muscles have now transformed into the dreaded "grandma bat wings". I am aware of this fact. When I would wear short sleeves with elastic at the ends, this newly-tranformed fat would become necrotic due to the way-too-tight elastic. It would seem that the designers didn't appropriately judge the needed ratio of size XL in the torso, to size XL in the arms. While in the process of cutting off circulation to and making Grand Canyon-size indentations within my flabby arms, the sleeves would successfully take all that flab from under my arms (leftover boob flab) and squish it up and out the armholes. Basically in any circumstance, ill-fitted armholes have the magicaly ability to attract stray upper-body fat and draw it out the holes on to the upper arms. This process makes even UNelastic sleeves too tight, and creates an ever-so-slight bulge of flab just below the end of the short sleeve.

I think I am done ranting. I guess the basic moral of the story is: don't wear things that displace body parts, and don't wear things in order to try to fool yourself in thinking you look differently than you truly do. I can appreciate different body types. What I cannot appreciate is people who so un-self-aware that they believe they can fool themselves into feeling like something they are not with a simple piece of ill-fitted clothing. If you are fat, don't pretend that your short-shorts and spaghetti strap top will go unnoticed. It will also not make you feel any thinner; in fact, it always makes me feel slightly fatter -- being able to feel all the displaced flab in places it normally is not (and when I sit down a whole new world of flab is revealed to all around me due to the simple process of constriction). If you are not fat, this is not a free ticket to wear whatever you want. It is still possible to look flabby when wearing the XS spaghetti strap top, causing the boobage to lop over the top of the tank. It is also mush moreso possible to look scanky, and in the case that these are my two options -- I would gladly embrace my flab anyday.