Listen to Lena

Perfecting the Art of Conversuasion

Are Flipper Feet in My Future?

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I’m filing this one under: AGING SUCKS.

And, it does the WEIRDEST things to your body.

Case in point: I’ve been a size 7 shoe for almost my entire life – certainly ever since my foot stopped growing around the age of sixteen. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my bestie – a confirmed size 7 whom I often swapped footwear with during our clubbing days (noticeably CFM* boots).

(*If you don’t know what CFM boots are, you’ll have to Google it. Sorry, I’m too old to use that kind of language.)

Anyhoo, I noticed a strange trend over the past few months – shoes that I’ve worn for YEARS suddenly felt very uncomfortable near the toes. The shoes clearly were too tight – my feet ached in protest if tried to slip them on for any length of time. Huh?

So last night, I had my husband bring up a storage box filled with old shoes – the ones I was hesitant to give away (hoping the style would recycle in the not-to-distant future). There were shoes and shoes and shoes.

And none of them fit. They were ALL too small. What.the.hell.

Exhibit A: These Barbie by David Dixon shoes were worn when I was 35 weeks pregnant. Do you know what women’s feet look like when baby-to-be is due? They’re swollen, take on manatee-like proportions and often lack a certain sex appeal.


(Of course, I’m still rocking my creepy skeletal feet, but trust me, they were quite larger than what I’m used to.)

And so when I came across the shoes last night I naturally thought, “These will fit for sure! If they fit while I was pregnant, certainly I can get into them now!”…. Yeah, not so much. Waaaay too tight.

So what gives? According to Terence Vanderheiden, D.P.M., “Feet can increase in size as you get older. Your feet are not really growing, but the tendons and ligaments tend to get stretched out and this leads to a larger foot size.” Also, weight gain (perhaps from 2 pregnancies in 2 years?) can also place pressure on the feet, slowly stretching and loosening the muscles.

The result: Mama needs some new shoes!

I have decided to embrace my newly size 8 feet and look forward to re-building my shoe collection, one pair at time. To begin, let’s start by coveting these colour block looks from Town Shoes:

Have your feet changed size over the years? I’d really like to think I’m not the only one!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AlexandraSD

    Yes maam. I went from a 6.5 to 7.5 during my second pregnancy and stayed there 10 years later.

  3. trish

    Mine actually did the opposite – I was a 7 since my feet stopped growing & then a few years ago I started noticing that all my shoes seemed too big. I’m now a 6. Then again, I have noticed that my body tends to do the complete opposite of what it should be doing

    • Lena

      That is so interesting! Same with my mom – she’s taking a smaller size now too. We’re all strange!

  7. Erin

    Yes!..2 babies have not only stretched everything else on my body but my feet too? argh!!! I was a size 8.5..now I’m 9.5 which most stores don’t carry half sizes so I am pretty much in the canoe section…

    • Lena

      CANOE section – LOL!!! I love this. I’m seriously thinking this is a new phenomena that will catch on soon….

  8. Becky

    This hasn’t happened to me… yet. But my mom had to go out and buy new shoes after she noticed her old ones getting to tight.

  10. stacey dempsey

    yes after having kids I went up about half a size , not that they got longer but seem to get wider lol but then after many many years they seem to have come back to normal
    YOU LOOK AWESOME by the way

  11. Allie

    Oh ya quite a drag was a sz 8-8.5 now 9 9.5 – 10 omfg!!!!!! (three pregnancies will do that to ya!!)
    I had quite a shoe collection but sadly ……. you know the rest! :(

    • Lena

      OMG size 10!!! That is crazy talk! But at least you can wait until shoes are discounted heavily and grab a size 10 – the size is usually left over along with size 5 :)

  13. Lara

    omg i saw the picture before your post and nearly pooped! i thought you were preggers again which had me wooping! aw. hehe. maybe that will be another post? lol!

    my feet grew about a half a size which really sucks because i have WAY too many beautiful boots, shoes, and sandals which i can no longer wear. i *almost* fit them but they kill to wear so it’s really a tease!

  14. Soulla

    Soooo, I’m currently a size 6. Can you please keep all your “old” size 7 shoes in storage until MY tendons and ligaments start to stretch? I’m loving the red pumps.

    • Lena

      LOL – while I do have some fabulous shoes I just couldn’t part with, the majority of them were sent to charity. But yup, you’ve got dibs on those David Dixon’s!