I never imagined that a belt like the XHtang ratcheting belt from Amazon would be such a game-changer for me, but I’m absolutely in love!
For those of you who aren’t aware, women’s clothes are usually designed stupidly. Not all of our pants have belt loops, and when they do, they appear to be meant more for decoration than anything else. It’s as if we’re supposed to wear belts that make us look cute without actually holding up our pants. This is a real problem.
Over the years, I’ve managed to pick pants that will accommodate a reasonable belt. It isn’t always easy, but since a durable, functional belt is a must in my life, I’ve gone the extra mile.
In 2017, I started wearing a simple black belt that was meant for men, but it did its job. It held up my pants and it supported items that a person might want to put on her belt. As I started losing weight though, I needed to purchase a smaller belt. Fred had been using a ratcheting belt for a while, so he suggested that I give one a try. I expected it to be a fad, but I bought the belt and haven’t looked back since.
There are two reasons that I really love this belt. First, as I’ve lost weight, it has been really easy to resize. I simply remove the leather from the buckle, trim the requisite amount of leather off the buckle end, and put the belt back together. No more getting every minute of wear out of a belt by adding new holes that have the belt wrapping halfway around your body because you don’t want to get a new one.
The second thing that I love about this belt is it’s adjustability. Normal belts have holes every inch, so if you happen to need an in between size, you have to add another hole or deal with saggy pants. The ratcheting belt can adjust to the quarter inch, so my pants stay put, even when I’m wearing a radio, a phone, or a gun.
As an added bonus, the manufacturer sells leather pieces without the buckle if you’re needing to replace that part of the belt. Sometime in late 2018, one of my pets got ahold of my belt. She put some teeth marks in the leather, but I dealt with it. I decided that next time I needed to shorten the belt, I’d go ahead and treat myself to a new piece of leather that doesn’t have teeth marks in it. And since I’ve now lost a total of 8” off my waist, I decided it was time to cut the old belt down and order a new piece of leather. I’ll keep the old one in case one of us needs it, but I was able to get the new piece of leather for about ⅔ the cost of the original belt, and I expect it to last for years!
If you’ve considered trying a ratcheting belt, I highly recommend this one. It’s really well made for the price point, and the features have me thinking that I’ll never go back to a regular belt again if I have anything to say about it!