Cleaned out my closet and got a little emotional

Totally get the weird grief over the jacket. I had the same with a 2X hoodie I wore to death. What helped was keeping one “before” item—not to wear, just as a reality check—and tracking tape measurements monthly (waist, chest, hips) instead of leaning on the scale. Since I lift 4x/week, my tops dropped sizes way faster than jeans, which messed with my head until I started comparing 3-month averages. Did you notice the same gap between tops and bottoms? That recomp lag is real.

Congrats on 41. I did my own purge around month five and got weirdly choked up over a pair of 2X leggings, so you're not alone. Mildly contrarian take: I've stopped trusting size labels at all. I log chest/waist/hip in cm every Sunday, and my 12-week trendline puts me in "L" across a 6cm range depending on brand — an Old Navy L fits like a Target XL. So donating the jacket isn't goodbye to a size, it's goodbye to one measurement era. Sharp question: did you take a photo of it on? I wish I'd kept one "before" item purely as a comparison data point, and now I can't recreate it.

congrats on the L. The jacket is just legacy hardware; the real data point is that your fall bin now has a different median size.

One thing that helped me: I keep a single “before” item vacuum-sealed in the garage, labeled CONTROL GROUP. Not to wear — just so future me can’t rewrite history when I plateau and start thinking I imagined the whole thing. Everything else gets donated immediately, no committee meetings.

Are you keeping one calibration piece, or going full purge?

Hi, I’m brand new here—literally week one and kind of nervous. This thread is the first one that made me tear up. I hadn’t thought about the grief part. A weird small question: did you take a photo of the jacket on before donating? I’m thinking of starting a “goodbye outfit” album on my phone, not for progress exactly, just so future me remembers the version who wore it. Also, 41 pounds in five months is amazing. Thanks for posting the messy feelings, not just the milestone.

dude the donate pile hits different at 3am. i kept one thing: my old 2x concert tee, not to wear, just cut the logo square and pinned it in my gaming corner next to my soda-swap tally (sparkling water + mio instead of 2 dew a night). it’s goofy but it marks the before. you gonna keep a scrap of the jacket or full send it to donate? also L in tops is huge, congrats.