I peed, dropped my towel and stepped on the scale, knowing bad things were going to jump up and slap me in the face. For three months I’ve been eating my way across America and I’ve had very little time to work out. Clothes have gotten tighter and tighter….even my underwear.
I took a deep breath, things were worse than I’d expected. 9 pounds, 9 freaking pounds. Holy cow, that’s 9 one pound bags of sugar.That’s what our annoying little dog weighs. Nine pounds, that’s the size of a two month old baby…a fat two month old baby.
It was Monday, I’d get the problem taken care of, get my eating under control. Then I pulled out a loose of “flowy” tank top and a skirt with an enormous amount of elastic.
I found a piece of white paper and wrote 15 ______14_____13_____12_____11_____10_____. you get the idea. Every time I lose a pound I’ll mark it off. I hung the paper on the wall, in the bathroom, over the scale. I’ll go to the gym today and get to a Taekwondo class tonight. The weight will come off, but it’ll take a couple of months.
I decided I’d adopt my daughter, Lexie’s, health program. When she wants to get in shape she can eat anything she wants as long as it doesn’t come from the freezer or cabinet. That basically leaves her meat, fruit and veggies. It worked beautiful.
The truth is ten or fifteen years ago nine pounds would have sent me into hysterical starvation mode. I’m bothered now but my world isn’t on fire. Nine pounds isn’t the apocalypse. At my age men don’t really care much about five or ten pounds. If they think a woman is attractive or hot it’s because she’s smart, confident and fun that’s what makes middle age sexy. Nine pounds when you’re sixteen or twenty one can be big trouble for two reason. Lots of young men are still pretty shallow at that age so a cheerleader body is important. And girls generally don’t have the confidence not to care. They think it’s a big deal and that makes it a big deal.
Grown men are generally smarter than that and less judgmental.
When I told my husband I’d gained nine pounds he was watching NCIS. I told him my big plan about working out and eating healthy foods but he wasn’t really listening. Then he surprised me, during a commercial he looked over and said, “Hey, does that mean your boobs are bigger?”
A long time ago, I realized pretty much every woman I was gonna date, would outwiegh me. Most women haven’t clocked in at the 120 pound mark that I’m at, since high school. I have dated women who were damn near double my weight. I don’t particularly care what a woman weighs. If she’s morbidly obese, she doesn’t need me to tell her. She knows. Every woman I’ve had any sustained relationship I’ve loved for who they are. Fortunately I haven’t ever dated anyone who was obsessed with their weight. I’m probably more obsessed with mine. I wish I could gain nine pounds. I could lose it with no problem.
Here Jack, you can hold my nine for a little while. I don’t actually think my husband will miss it. Thanks for reading.
LOVE LOVE LOVE reading your postings!! You constantly make me thing of BETTER ways to think about things that on a small scale are HUGE, but on a bigger scale are SMALL! LOVE u!
You are so right. Age has it’s advantages…but not many.
It’s important to keep things in perspective.