The drain in my groin has now come out and I can wear proper clothing again. Nothing to flash today as I am just happy to be able to dress in clothes again. Todays outfit consists of M.J. Bale Kenton 1/2 Zip Cable Knit in Navy OTAA Polo Shirt in Brown Levi 501’s in Indigo Ted Baker Donel Hybrid Hi Shine Double Monk Shoe in OxBlood Anson Leather Strap in OxBlood in a Traditional Curved buckle in Gunmetal SOTD - Mancera Red Tobacco WOTD - Invicta Grand Diver in white with a red buzzed, AKA Big Red

(This is part 2 of a series of posts discussing my thoughts on my current “glowing up while slimming down” journey.) Clothes shopping, as a fat man, isn’t joyous. Before I get lynched in the comments, let me clarify. By “clothes shopping”, I mean in-person high-street retail shopping. Y’know, the bread and butter clothes shopping experience, partly dictated by finances. I’m sure, with the right billfold and a stacked rolladex, employing a suite of bespoke artisans to tailor-drape me in fibrous regality would be quite the uplifting moment. Alas, funds allow what funds allow, and being fat and hitting the outlet village can be sobering at best, and dehumanising at worst. There’s a few reasons for this. The main reason is lack of options. Stores, in their wisdom, keep stock to cater to a bell curve. The majority of their lines will bell curve their garments, with the biggest fractions for those median-shaped people that surround us all. Average height, build, and so on. Sure, there’ll be some outliers to the sizes, curving down. But that means us “extremes” will have a playbook of maybe one or two items to choose from, while “normies” will have the whole store. And if Big Alan has been in an hour earlier and bought a pair of trousers, you’re just bang out of luck. (I realise there may be a UK filter on this comment. Presumably in the US, there’s a much wider and flatter profile of stock options, with the bell curve topping at some number of XLs. Everything is bigger and better there, right?) So the main stores have limited scope. What of shops that cater entirely to the Higher and Mightier folk out there? I mean yes, these are okay, but they are few and far between, and the ones in the UK at least seem largely generic in their designs. They also, in my experience, make a few assumptions in ratio that means people like the Historical Me miss out. Tall and Wide? All good. Small and Skinny? Covered. But us Short Kings with Extensive Circumference are told to just roll on by.

Have you ever had to get to a place or a destination and you hit a delay? I was on my way to Florida for a business trip, now I get to the airport to fly to Florida 4 PM. I get a notification on my phone, your flight’s been delayed by several hours. I’m now gonna miss my connecting flight. Here is the thing, in my younger days and before my journey, I would’ve been really angry and upset in that moment and I would’ve ran over to the gate and probably made a fool of myself by yelling at the agent standing behind the Delta counter and I would say say something like “ Are you %*#% serious! my flight has been delayed and I’m going to miss my connecting flight, are you *#%*# serious!This is crazy. Now I’m not gonna make it to my destination on time. “ Do you think I would’ve gotten anywhere if I went up to the counter like this now? Not to mention I am in a two piece suit, so you know I stand out more than most traveling. What I did was I that I walked over to the counter, trying to maintain a positive attitude. I smiled at the lady behind the counter and I said “ma’am, I heard your professional problem solver is that true?” and she started smiling. Then I said ,”I heard you’re so good at solving problems and pay you to do it!” This got her smiling ,and I said “look I have a problem. I know it’s not actually yours so if you can’t solve it, I understand but if you can, it would mean the world to me, I have a client that is in Florida waiting for me to help them with a very serious matter.” She smiled and said let me see what I can do,and she starts punching her computer keypad and she looks at me. She says I’m really sorry there’s only one flight tomorrow it’s gonna get you there at 10 AM tomorrow . There’s one more flight tonight but it’s flying standby. Meaning there’s no seats available. You’re gonna wait by the gate if you get a seat they’ll put you on if not, they will put you in a hotel. I said “OK that’s sounds good, thank you so much I the effort.” Sorry, one second sir, she keeps punching away at her keypad two minutes later she walks in front of the gate and she comes up to me and she hand me a boarding pass and she says I got you to see on the plane tonight. I was like, “the computer did it or did you do it? “ She goes, it was kind of both.

You have to live what you talk about. Not just post about it. Anyone can share a Bible verse. Not everyone lives it. The world doesn’t need more talk… It needs more action. More real examples. Don’t just post it… Live it. Every single day. That’s what actually matters. How you live will always carry more weight than what you say. ~ Andy Frisella