Shape

I'm very happy to say that I finished 2010 weighing in at 72.5kg. After getting to that weight once a few weeks ago, I went back up, peaking at 75kg as a result of various Christmas parties. Annoyingly, I seemed to get very peckish yesterday afternoon and evening, weighing in at 73kg again last night. I'm starting to think that perhaps there is a correlation between crossdressing and weight loss! The days that I'm crossdressed, I eat less between meals and therefore lose weight. Then again, it might just be the fact that when I'm en femme, I'm usually also away from home and hence away from the temptation to snack.

I have decided that my goal in weight loss is to try to get rid of the (now much smaller) spare tyre around my waist, but not go below 65kg. If I get to 65kg and still have the spare tyre, I'll just have to put up with it. If the spare tyre is gone and I'm still above 65kg, I'll adopt the weight that gets rid of the flab to be my target weight and try to maintain it plus or minus 1kg.

I'd like to say that once I get to my target weight, I'll be able to stop wearing a body shaper, but until I get there, I simply won't know. In the meantime, I will continue using the best flexible, comfortable body shaper that I can find. I will not wear rigid corsets and the like, they just aren't me. If I can't wear it comfortably all day on a hot Australian summer day, it's no good to me.

As part of my time out shopping on Friday I went for a drive and bought the Bella Bodies strapless boxer body shaper that I intended to buy. As it turned out, between when I made the decision to go there and when I actually went, I did some more research online and discovered that the style that I have now is obsolete and that there is a new style with a new sizing scale. The one that I bought on Friday was of the old style, and is quite suitable to wear with anything that covers conventional bra straps adequately. Given that the current recommended price is $65, the normal price from this shop was $70 but, with a 20% off sale it came down to $56, I'm happy to have another old style one, and will buy a new style one when the opportunity arises, probably during a trip to Sydney in the next month or two.

The new style changes 2 things. Instead of having a detachable shoulder strap on each side, they apparently rely upon a pair of straps that loop around the sides of the bra above it, eliminating the need for additional straps and opening up the possibility of fitting with any style of bra including halter, crossover, etc. The other thing that has changed is that with the new sizing scale, I'm now towards the top of the scale for the M size, instead of firmly in the L-XL size in spite of my recent weight loss.

Interestingly, the sizing scale no longer has Large and eXtra Large names in the scale. The scale is now S, M, V and VV. Apparently V is for Voluptuous and VV is for Very Voluptuous. As a marketing strategy emphasising positive body image terminology, I think that the naming is a brilliant idea.

The Bella Bodies strapless boxer isn't the only body shaper that uses straps around the bra. A few months ago, I ordered a similar garment from Spanx in the USA. The Spanx one doesn't just use side straps, though. It uses 4 straps, with two at the middle of the front and back and two at the sides. The strap at the front turned out to be quite noticeable under even a moderately low cut top! On a whim, I also ordered an all-in-one version that has an integral bra. When they finally arrived, weeks after the expected delivery time, they were too big to the extent that they were virtually a perfect fit for my size without compressing anything anywhere. They were also made from very heavy material. I would probably collapse from heat stroke if I wore one of them outside on a hot Australian summer day. The Bella Bodies material is thinner and breathes quite well, making them much cooler to wear. The only advantage that the Spanx have over Bella Bodies is that they are seamless, whereas the Bella Bodies have seams down the front and back.

The bra part of the all-in-one Spanx was not specified as a cup size. There was just a "size large" with rather stretchy cups and underwires suitable for about a C cup. The cups provide vastly inadequate support for D cup breasts and have too high a centre height at the front for my liking. Unfortunately, the cost of posting them back to the USA for a refund would have been throwing good money after bad, so I didn't bother returning them. Hopefully I can find someone a few sizes larger to sell or give them to. Hmm. Perhaps I'll consider a give-away to blog followers. I'll have to think more about that.