@countrygurl32 I get attached to certain favorite clothes and when I gain muscle I am excited and proud (my calves once ripped the seams on a pair of skinny jeans hehehe) to be stronger, heavier, more muscular but a little bit of me is sad that I can’t wear (as well/as comfortably) my favorite clothes pieces.
Shopping is a little bit fun but mostly exhausting and tiring for me so I dread having to replace large chunk of my own wardrobe. I also don’t like spending a lot of money or taking part in the fast fashion carousel.
It seems like you have more of an attachment to size. For pants, I detest womens sizing and have found solace in Levis sizing (waist measurements/mens pant sizes).
I’m not sure what the size 0 means for you. I’ve almost always been a size 2 in most brands and I would feel a bit odd about going up to a size 4, as I have occasionally, usually due to a particular brands sizing. I think it is a little unnerving because I don’t always know WHICH part of my body and the garment is disagreeable.
Perhaps you can use a tape measure to track your measurements/gains if that would feel like a healthy way to remind yourself that not ALL of you is getting larger, just some parts that matter for garment fitting.
In middle school I was very frustrated by trying to understand what clothing fit me well (and why it sometimes didn’t) and I took all my measurements with a tailors tape. I was and am quite interesting in sewing and tailoring. It was some extra work over time to measure myself monthly and compare to my best/worst fitting clothes but it was very enlightening.
I will mention that muscle is three times denser than fat tissue, and it does not have the same malleability/compressability that less dense tissue does.
In my own opinion, gaining circumference in torso or limb via muscle FEELS more noticeably restrictive than gaining the same circumference in soft tissue.
Having a larger posterior pulls on stretch fabric not just longitudinally but also latitudinally. It can particularly reduce movement/fit in the groin and hip area because it’s already stretched so close to the max capacity. If your thighs have also gained circumference via muscle, this can reduce not just fabric stretch in thigh areas but also the hip/groin area mobility a surprising amount.
These types of muscle gains/losses can be a huge part of suit tailoring for men particularly, though it’s not talked about as much in womens wear.
I think womens clothing/sizing has a weird disregard for muscle tissue, as if it doesn’t exist. As if the only fathomable tissue type contributing to sizing is soft tissue, which is totally inaccurate.
If anything, you can tell yourself your bones are a size 0 but your muscles demand a size up.
