In my clueless skinny twenties, I house-sat for my neighbor Judy. I was bewildered by the Retin-A products in her bathroom and her new zeal for fitness as she attempted to be the weight she visualized equaling a hunk of meat from the grocery store. I’m now the age she was then and my belly is equal to an Easter ham which generously serves twenty-five. I’m living a horrible nightmare where my face got stuck on my mother’s body. I had denied my kin’s penchant for paunch and blamed lack of exercise and a love of gravy smothered meats. But when the belt loops of my jean’s ripped out at their roots as I did the “yank up and wriggle into them” maneuver last year, I had to admit my muffin top runneth over.
There is me and then there’s the body I occupy currently. “Me” wears a size eight and weighs 135 pounds, but still thinks she’s large. Even though I eat with it and sleep in it, my current body is foreign to me. I vaguely remember adding some happy-to-be-in-love poundage when my husband and I were first dating, eating out, and drinking our way through the big city. Then there was that nine month stretch of morning sickness where I borrowed as many calories as would stop the nausea. The cute new mom “jelly belly” was solidified by the screeching halt of my metabolism. I now sport an “Alien” belly that could burst open and send something scuttling across the floor at any moment. “Me” has a body’s worth of bones to pick for her betrayal by my current body. Say I look good for my age and I’ll cut you.
I’ve labeled myself “Fit Fat.” Fit meaning I exercise regularly. The “run three miles three times a week without gasping for breath” kind of exercise. And yet my outsides are not matching up to my insides; my expectations leave me disappointed. For months, I’d run to the gym, exercise diligently, and run home. After a weigh day, I wanted to cry. Nothing had changed. I had not lost a pound. I left feeling sorry for myself and was ready to quit. But I caught myself and said, “Knock it off. You’re fit aren’t you? Be thankful for that and get running.” A year later, I discovered my then measurements on a card. I weighed and measured and again and nothing had changed. Neither had my weight loss expectations. My exercise and eating habits were exactly the same. If you change nothing, nothing changes. Some soul searching uncovered some thoughts lurking in my psyche undermining my efforts.
I was warily perched atop a bicycle at the Y when I met a woman who had impressively lost over a hundred pounds for “health” reasons. When I queried her if the daily workouts were partly a fear of gaining it back, she exclaimed exercise was just a daily way of life for her now. But I watched her furtively glancing around the room as she spun. Fear, addiction, and anger trickled from her like sweat. She didn’t say goodbye to me when she dismounted the bicycle. She was scary. Maybe getting what you want doesn’t always mean your problems will magically go away.
For a long time my sex appeal held great value. If I was wanted, I had power and this was the only power I held for a very long time. A remnant of that desire for power surely lies on the cutting room floor of my new life where I’m just another man’s middle aged frumpy wife. My husband is still attracted to me. So whose eyes am I scornfully viewing my bloated Momma belly and sagging Granny jowls with? Just as I’ve reached a point where I can give up basing my power on men’s lust for me, suddenly I hope for a new body and desirability again? Fear of success is messing with me, man.
