What to Do When Your Clothes Don’t Fit
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When I made the shift from my obsession with being skinny no matter what it took, to treating my body in a healthier way, nourishing my body with what it needs and actually honoring my body with movement, I put on a lot of muscle. And I’ll be honest, it was an extremely hard period in my life to navigate. It was difficult for me to accept myself in this new body that didn’t feel like my body. My lack of acceptance led to years of battle struggles.
With this episode of Embrace Your Real, I’m giving you some real talk on how to deal with putting on muscle, in hopes of helping you break your destructive mindset around your new body. I’m going to show you a new perspective on muscles, plus share the most important thing you need to go do right now if you are currently facing this mental battle.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, welcome back to the Embrace Your Real podcast. My name is Julie Ledbetter. I'm the host of this show and I'm so grateful that you are here joining me wherever you are in the world, wherever you are tuning in from, whether you're walking, you're at the gym, you are driving, you are cleaning, you're cooking, you're just spending some time. I love seeing what you're doing and where you're from so be sure to screenshot this episode, post it up on your social stories, tag me, Julia Ledbetter and I love connecting with you on the 'gram. If you are not already subscribed to the podcast, be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. We post them every Monday and Thursday and I love connecting with this community. So grateful to be here. This episode is one that I got a lot of feedback on recently when I posted a Q&A on my Instagram story.
A lot of people wanted to know how to deal with this. This is honestly a great question because I remember when I first started really getting into resistance training, weightlifting, I remember facing this. So I'm just going to dive right into today's episode, how to deal with getting more muscular. So I want to have some real talk with you on how to really navigate through this whole journey. Because from experience I did have an extremely difficult point in my journey that brought me here. I remember I used to hover around 107 to 115 pounds. Remember, I'm almost 5'9 so mind you, I was not naturally this small. It was a forced small because I had an addiction to under eating and overexercising and obsessing on how to get skinnier. So this is something that I talk more in depth about on episode one. If you haven't already tuned into that, be sure to do so. That's kind of my whole story about it.
But I was so fixated on getting skinnier so you can bet that I was so terrified of putting on muscle. This is, again, something that I talk about in episode one just with my boyfriend at the time, now husband. I remember telling him I was so scared to start doing anything because I did not want muscle, and I get it. Putting on muscle can be scary. It changes the way your body looks, it changes the way that your clothes fit and the change in it of itself can be really scary. When I started to treat my body in a healthier way, I started nourishing my body with what it needed, I put on a substantial amount more muscle than I previously had because I was working against my body for so long.
I'll be honest, it was hard for me to deal with at first. It was hard for me to see my body change into something that it had never been before and it really did affect me mentally and I want to make sure that you don't go through the same mental struggles that I went through because I want to show you a new perspective on your muscular body. I'm also going to share with you the most important thing that you need to do right now if you are facing this mental battle. So first of all, I want to get one thing clear. Just because you are muscular, that does not mean that you are bulky. I think that this is a big, big, big misconception. Oftentimes I think we think of bulky and muscles ... or at least I did for a long time. When someone said, "Oh, I want to get more muscles." I was like, "Oh, I don't want to be bulky."
I constantly used those two different words with different meanings as the same thing. Gaining muscle and getting bulky are not the same thing. Right? I know that this was a huge fear for so many women, myself included. Previously, I didn't want to touch a dumbbell. For two decades of my life, I didn't want to touch a dumbbell. I didn't want to eat any protein because I was just so fearful of building, quote, "bulk". It's so funny now because I am currently eating one gram of protein per pound of body weight. I'm eating about 140-ish, 140, 150 grams of protein per day. I mean I'm the healthiest, I'm the strongest I've ever been and my body composition is entirely different. But when you gain muscle, you are reshaping your body. Your body composition is transforming and it doesn't mean that you're getting bigger or bulkier.
In fact, resistant training will actually make you appear much leaner since muscle is more dense than fat. So I used to equate more muscles to women that are really big into bodybuilding, have a substantial amount of muscle. Those women that you see, they've worked extremely hard and have trained specifically to look that way and it goes so far beyond just training as well. It really has to do with, number one, time. It takes time to build muscle, and two, nutrition is everything. A lot of times the women who are intentionally bulking, what they're doing is they are eating in a chloric surplus, which is essentially more calories than what your energy expenditure is. I can do a whole nother podcast episode on this. Energy expenditure, caloric deficit, caloric maintenance, caloric surplus, all the things. But they're specifically doing this and so I just want to remind you that if you're just resistance training and you're nourishing your body for what it needs, you're not going to gain bulk.
Bulk is typically fat, which is necessary to really, really build a lot of muscle mass. But when you're just simply training for life, it's going to help you build muscle without building the bulk, which will help you appear leaner. Right? It's crazy. When I look now at my body just in terms of weight, which if you haven't listened to episode two, your weight means absolutely nothing. But my body composition has entirely changed and I am much stronger now, but I appear as leaner, which is kind of crazy. It's just a matter of building that muscle. Anyways, all that to say, if you're struggling with gaining muscle, remind yourself that you're not getting bulkier, you're getting more muscular. That was a big mental shift that I had to make, really telling myself, "Oh, I'm not getting bulkier. I'm just gaining more muscle."
Something that also comes along with building more muscles is curves. I personally think curves are so beautiful. Even more importantly, I think that curves are natural to have as a woman. The beautiful thing about lifting weights is whether you are a curvier person, whether that's genetics or whatever, or you are not a curvier person, building muscle allows you to build curves, which is so cool to me. I truly believe that becoming more muscular helps our body be more naturally what it's supposed to be, rather than forcing our bodies into this skinny version of ourselves that is not what it's meant to be. Right? So for literally two decades of my life, I worked against my body to be the skinniest version of myself and I was working against my curves. One thing that I love so much as I have built muscles and really gained more curves is that Josh loves them.
I think it's so cool to just hear from ... as a wife, hearing my husband say like, "These curves are so beautiful." It just makes me feel so much more empowered in my own skin. So girl, I want you to learn to love those curves. So whether you believe it or not, they are 100% beautiful. Again, whether you have curves or you don't have curves, the beautiful thing about lifting weights and building more muscle is that you get to make your own curves, which is so amazing. These are signs that you have been respecting your body. You've been moving your body, you've been nourishing your body and loving your body. So love, love, love those curves. Just how curly haired people want straight hair and straight haired people want curly hair. That's me. In case you ever see my curly hair on my Instagram story. I wish that that was real. That's totally manufactured.
But the girls who don't have curves want curves and the girls who have curves don't want curves. It's just a matter of perspective. So learn to love your body from this new perspective. The eye is truly in the beholder. There is no one best body that makes you feel most beautiful. To me, I truly believe all bodies are beautiful and even more beautiful when they're being rocked with confidence. I don't know about you, but when some people ... when humans walk into a room and they're just owning themselves, they're owning who they are, they're owning what they're wearing, they're owning their body, they're owning their personality, they're owning their knowledge, all the things that they do, it just illuminates a room and it makes you want to be around that person. So embrace your new muscular body and most importantly, I want you to own it.
I truly want you to own it. The moment that I made this mental shift of like, "I am going to choose to light up a room with my confidence," that's the moment I felt so much more empowered in this new muscular body and it's a beautiful thing. I know another thing when it comes to gaining more muscle that causes a lot of frustration is that your clothes don't fit the same or they don't fit at all. I know for me, when I first started gaining more muscle, it was like my whole entire closet did not fit me and it was frustrating at first. I truly remember just feeling constantly frustrated and discouraged because my size zero, two, four clothes were not fitting me. To me at the time, the size of the clothes meant everything to me so it was horrible.
So to avoid the change I would just stayed in denial and I kept telling myself, "Oh, I'm just going to keep these clothes in the back of my closet for the day that I am or will be that size again." It was such a mental battle for so long. Honestly, this is one of the worst things that you can do for yourself if you're struggling with gaining more muscle or building more muscle. So my number one advice for women when they say like, "How do you deal with putting on more muscle or your body changing?" I say, "Get rid of all the clothes that no longer fit you and more importantly, no longer serve you." When you hold onto them, you're preventing yourself from truly loving your body for what it is in that moment. As long as those clothes are sitting in the closet, you'll constantly be convincing your body that it's not what you want it to be right now.
Right? It's just constant battle. Every time you go into the closet or every time you look at the clothes that you can't wear, it's a slap in the face of, "Oh, your body used to be like this and it's no longer like that." I was looking at these clothes and I kept telling myself like, "Oh, I'm not ever going to be able to do that, but I'm going to hold onto them for one day that I fit in them." It just constantly reminded me of it. Then I kind of have to slap myself back into reality like, "But I feel so much better. I feel so much stronger." So it was just no longer serving me. So toss out the clothes that are no longer serving your body. I promise that it will help you build a healthier relationship with your new body composition, your new muscular body, and over time you can begin to rebuild your wardrobe with clothes that accentuate the body that you're building and that you feel comfortable in.
This was something really cool. I think it was a simple mindset shift too. When I started to finally get rid of the clothes that were no longer serving me, I used to look at looking for new clothes that fit my new body as a challenge and instead I decided to look at it as an opportunity. So for me, if I was constantly telling myself, "Oh, it's such a challenge to find jeans that fit", or, "It's such a challenge to find a dress that fits my new body," or, "Oh, it's such a challenge to find a shirt that fits these arms," or whatever it is. I was telling myself that it was hard and so my actions were making it harder than it actually was. Instead of looking at it as an opportunity to find clothes, to find companies, which now is it's beautiful How much more inclusive the fashion industry as a whole has gotten with size inclusivity and just making clothes to actually fit bodies of people that actually lift, which is still ...
We have a long way to go, don't get me wrong, but there are definitely companies out there that prioritize that and I remember when I first really got into lifting, I threw out the idea of ever wearing jeans again. I was like, "Well I'm just going to wear leggings or stretchy pants because I can't find any jeans." I did that for a long time. I would say for about three and a half years. When I decided to make that simple shift of, "Oh, it's an opportunity for me to find new companies that create clothes, that accentuate more muscular bodies," is when I found my favorite denim company. If you've been following me on Instagram, you guys know I love Fran Denim. I team up with them a lot, do giveaways and stuff.
But Fran denim is literally a jean built for the athletic body, which is so cool because it fits the waist, it fits the booty, it fits the thighs, and so incredible. So definitely check them out. They're amazing, amazing jean company. But it was so cool for me to find clothes that I finally felt comfortable in. Then it opened up this whole opportunity for me to be like, "What other brands are there?" So since then it's been really awesome to find clothes that accentuate the body that I'm building, and it allows me to rock them with confidence. So I want you to choose to love the skin and the body that you're in more than the size that you're trying to fit in. Because honestly, the size of your jeans or the size of your dress or the size of the tank top, they do not define you. Trust me when I say a size across the board with eight different companies is going to look entirely different.
So just throw out any sort of size that you're trying to fit in because it's going to change regardless of the company. I can assure you that no one cares what size pant, no one cares what size top or dress that you are wearing Friday night. Because honestly self confidence is the best outfit that you can have. So I want you to rock that with confidence and I want you to own it, girl. Again, trust me, I'm not trying to downplay this struggle because I know that it's a real thing and I know that it's hard and I know that it's going to take some time for you to process, but I can tell you, speaking from experience, and honestly I'm actually sitting in my closet recording this right now, looking at all of my new clothes that I have built a wardrobe over the last three to four years that I feel comfortable in. I feel confident in, and it's a beautiful thing when you can just rock clothes that you feel comfortable and confident in because that's, I would say, probably the biggest frustration across the board with women's bodies.
Just gaining more muscle. It can feel hard for that. So finding clothes that accentuate the body, rocking them with confidence, remembering that simple mindset shift of it's not that you're getting bulky, it's that you're just gaining more muscle, which is beautiful. You're getting stronger and remembering all of the beautiful things that are happening because you're prioritizing getting stronger. Right? I know for me it's so much more than a physical thing. It's really a mental transformation that's happening as I get stronger and stronger. So all of the girls out there who are building stronger bodies just remember that. That you are doing this and it's making you mentally stronger and you don't need to hold on to any other ideal of what your previous body looked like and comparing your now body to then body.
Think about your now body and beyond. No longer looking at your body two years ago, three years ago, four years ago. You were in a completely different season of life. Your body is what it is right now. So learn to embrace it, learn to love it. I want you to remember that in the same way, like I was just previously saying, grass is always greener on the other side, right? Curly haired girls always want straight hair, straight haired girls always want curly hair. The body that you're building right now, I guarantee there are women looking at your body like, "Oh, I want that." Not that one body is better than the other or that you should compare your bodies. But just remember that there are women looking at your body being like, "That is my goal body." Right? So just rocking your body with confidence and remembering that you are right where you're at for a reason and I want you to celebrate the body that you have right now.
Embrace it, girl. You've got it. That is all that I have for today's episode. I hope that you found something helpful. I would love, love, love to see you tossing out those jeans or that dress or that top or the clothes that you have been holding on in the back of your closet. Snap a photo, toss them out, tag me on Instagram. I want to see it. I want to celebrate the crap out of you, girl, because that, I will tell you, the moment that I cleared my closet was a moment I was able to clear my head, clear my mind, clear my heart, and remind myself that I am so worthy. I am so beautiful. My body that I'm building is beautiful. I'm going to find clothes. It's going to give me an opportunity to do so, and you're able to slowly rebuild your wardrobe with your new beautiful body. So that is all that I have. I love you so much. Be sure to screenshot this, tag me in your stories. I love connecting with you guys and I will see you guys in the next episode.