Thoughts On Weight Loss and Goals

So, on this beautiful morning in the Sonoran Desert, I'm taking a break from earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars to talk about weight loss.  Yeah, that's right, weight loss.  Since I was 10, weight has been an issue for me.  I'm sure you've read all sorts of articles regarding this subject.  If you haven't, you probably don't  have any concerns regarding the topic.  May I suggest to  you that you may want to stop reading now and move on to something more interesting and more important?  For the rest of you what I'm about to write just might strike a chord.  Maybe you'll be able to relate.

I remember when I was 10 and  preparing to do a duet with my father in a community minstrel show.  We were going to sing  "Has Anybody Seen My Gal" on stage in front of a huge amount of people;  in my mind it was huge.  I was thrilled and ready to make him proud.  Of course shopping for the perfect dress was part of the fun. Mom took me to the best shops, with  beautiful collections.  The dresses I liked the most just didn't fit and that's when it was brought to my attention that "I still had some baby fat to lose".  Honestly, I don't know if it was her or me that brought the whole baby fat subject up, but   for the first time in my life I had a knotted, frustrated, sort of panicky feeling that my body was out of control and had a mind of it's own.  Mom commented to the lady at the store who was helping us saying,  "it's just baby fat, she'll lose it".  Of course, her words didn't help, and again, I don't know if it was my imagination or what, but I could tell my mother was a little disappointed too.. I wound up getting a horrible beige (I look soooo bad in beige) taffeta dress with an olive green velvet ribbon around the waist.  I don't recall actually getting on stage with my father and the dress, but I did.  Fortunately I didn't give my weight or the dress a thought ; at least not that night.




After that, the rest is history. Thanks to Barbie, (I adored that doll, along with her boyfriend Ken and her little sister Kipper...I think that was her name.) Twiggy, and a myriad of others in the late 50's and early 60's who bombarded us with images of beautiful, young, perfect women, long lashes, long necks, long legs and of course long blonde hair.  (Yes, Barbie came in dark hair like mine, but no one wanted her so I think they finally discontinued that one.)

 Perhaps that was the end of  the period of attractive women  such as Rosiland Russel, a plumper Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.




The beautiful women now came in size 0, were flat chested and had bodies that almost looked like pre-pubescent little girls bodies, thanks to Twiggy.  Of course, if you had breasts, then Barbie was your model, but the breasts were the only real curves.










Even though I wasn't totally enamored by those images, I became  aware of the the thought that beauty seemed to be skin deep.  Fast forward to now.  In my life as a grown woman, I'm ashamed to admit that the tiny body icon still is alive and well.  I'll admit though, not as much.



 I did a lot of self brain washing, used some determination, and had a little help from my friends. Maybe I'm almost , that's the key word here, almost,  content with my body.  Subsequently, when I had my last child, who is now 32, I slowly gained a huge amount of weight. And that was after he was born. I went back to where I used to live for a visit and saw some old friends, one thought I was pregnant.  How embarrassing is that?

 I read all sorts of things to help me accept myself just the way I was.  All that did was cause me to push the issue of self hate deeper down and into a huge messy bucket of denial in my soul.  You see,  I was fat, not just a little chubby, I was fat.  I was lost inside  my body and lost inside a world of  having to care for others over myself.  Diets were not in the forefront of my life, and eating was an easy way to escape from the pressures of everyday life.  (I didn't drink then.  Probably should have. Ha!)






Fortunately I had a  husband who constantly told me how beautiful I was.  Nope, it didn't help my self image, but it helped our relationship.  But that's a whole 'nother blog. Then my other half had a birthday which escorted him into the throngs of a midlife crisis and he announced, "I'm old, fat, bald and ugly and the only thing I can do anything about is the fat part.  I'm joining a gym."  That was it, I wasn't going to let him go to a place where cute, tight little bodies walked confidently around carrying weights and running on treadmills.  I joined too.  Thus began my journey of conscientiously saying good-bye to my "baby fat".

When an intense life crisis finally ended (which caused me to lose another 20 lbs on top of the 20 I had already lost) I was on the road to happiness.  Sort of.   I gained about 15 to 20 lbs of  back, which really wasn't such a big deal, it was pretty minuscule compared to what I originally had to lose. Yet it was a dark reminder that I could let my body get the best of me, turn on me, instead of being my friend,  and I would be lost again, inside my own flesh.

Let me just insert some clarity here:  Am I vain? Yes.  Do I put too much emphasis on physical appearance? Probably.  Should I work more on that side of me rather than the extra 10 or so pounds I need to lose? Probably. But I know me by now, the weight has to go.

 Please understand, I didn't think my mother had any issues with weight until  I mentioned to my daughter that her grandmother didn't have any problems with losing, and she was free of issues like that. My daughter laughed and said something like, "Yes she did mom!" and proceeded to give me an example.  The light in my brain went on and showed me some of the things that fueled my obsession.  Okay, before you get all judgmental let me explain.  I'm not trying to blame my mother. God knows where her issues came from because that was way before Twiggy.  But I found a picture of her when she was 8 months pregnant with me. On the back, written in her beautiful script in pencil were these words, "I was 8 months pregnant with Peggy here. I weighed 108."  YESSSSSS....did you read that? Eight months pregnant and 108 pounds.  Just recently I was going over family photos when I saw a picture of her not many years before she died. She was literally skin and bones.  Yes, she had been sick, but still.  I know that at one point of her "sickness" she said she weighed 89 or so pounds and had t buy her clothes in the children's department. Geesh.

I have been working on an extra 15 to 20 pounds for a long, long time. I officially joined the nutrition side of my gym by paying extra money to help me reach my goal. When I do, my payments will go down.  You would think that I would be sooo determined by money alone, and I am , but am now seeing my old friend Discouragement.  The scale hasn't moved in months.  Another month, another payment goes by and I'm only 5 to 3 pounds short of my goal.  I've already lost 10 pounds, 12 altogether since I've joined the gym, 10 since I started the weight loss side.

Apparently I had a lot to learn myself, about weight loss and weight gain, and maybe even common sense when it comes right down to it.  But the most important thing that I've learned (Thank you Physix and Shannon) is that weight loss is only about calorie intake.  It doesn't matter where the calories come from, if you go beyond a certain point, you will gain, if you eat less than you burn, you lose.  Simple, but not easy.  My husband lost 60 pounds when he went on the weight loss program.  Now of course, he has kept it off for 6 months so his payment went way down.  He looks good and he feels awesome and healthy.  (Thanks again Physix and Shannon!)  So, it's like I'm climbing a mountain and I'm on a ledge viewing the summit.






But hey, it's been a freakin' long trek and I'm tired. And the view is really pretty from here and maybe I should just be happy with the accomplishments I've already reached and...and...and. yada yada yada. If I show no progress when trying to reach a goal,  I have no one else to blame or hold responsible except myself.

Friends and acquaintances have told me how great I look, you don't need to lose any more they say, and on and on. It makes it a little difficult, since vanity over health is a motivator, because I really like how I look now.  Even more so, yep, I'll admit,  I like how I feel.  I'm stronger than a lot of people who are 40 years younger than me, and I'm relatively flexible with a sense of balance.  But hey, all it takes is a few nods to my penchant, and I'm back at my 10 year old self, with that horrible beige dress, feeling panicky and separated from my own body.  I'd be back feeling like my body has taken over and I'm going to disappear in a deluge of "baby fat".

If you are a wise woman of a certain age and you are reading this 'tsking' and shaking your head in sheer pity of my woeful state of mind, if you are a women of a certain age who is happy with herown  self and knows the important things that matter in life really aren't fleshly,  here are my thoughts to you:  Yes, I admire you, yes, a while ago I wanted to be like you, and yes, you're right about a lot.  But I'm not you. I've accepted that I'm not. I've accepted me for me, with all of my spiritual and emotional imperfect blemishes.  I have pretty much learned to accept them instead of fight them these days. And it works for me.  Part of that "working for me" thing is to start each day telling myself that it's a new day and all I have left is 5 pounds.  (on some days it's only 3, so hey, I'm almost there.)

Someday maybe it won't be so important to me, but now it is so ce'est lavie.   Love to you all.