Has Anyone Seen My Ass?

Photo by soosay.

I am not ready to be a frumpy middle aged woman.  That is why I have decided, once and for all, to take back control of my body!  Gravity watch out!

I recently read an article in Self magazine which had you look at fitness and weight loss goals that you have now or that you have been putting off.  In it, they asked, "How would you feel in a years' time, if you still have not achieved this goal?"  This got me to thinking.  How many times have I said, "This is it!  I am going to lose this weight!" only to find myself three months down the road, right where I started.  Frankly, I have been feeling like a failure year after year after year, totalling a whopping 12 years, with regards to my weight.

Once upon a time, I was skinny and fit, and had the flattest stomach on the face of the earth (thanks to college volleyball).   An ex-boyfriend at the time even told me I had the flattest stomach he had ever seen (ironically the same one who thought my bush too bushy). Glory days, I know...but I have never given up hope that I can achieve that again, stretch marks and all.

I've tried to see myself how others see me compared to how I see myself.  My current social circle wasn't around during that period of my life so sees me only as I am now...modestly over weight, borderline droopy.  The athlete in me is buried under layers of chubba and squishy, unused musculature.  I have had friends say, "Hey, why don't you start walking, get some exercise?" or after a bout of exercise, "Hey, you are starting to look pretty athletic!"  Pardon me, but in my eyes, I am strong, athletic and fit.  What were they seeing that I was not?   I realized, upon seeing my burgeoning physique in random photos, I had become Fat-Blind.

With this condition, I am unable to see myself as I truly appear, but rather continue to see myself as I once was.  Often alone when naked, looking at myself in the mirror, I am usually pretty happy with what I see.  Of course, I seldom look at the back side of myself, as the doughy plumpness of my ass is something I am in complete denial about.  Recall, I walk in side-step fashion passed my husband when nude, to hide the rhythmic bouncing of my ass-ets.  I can't imagine many women truly love their ass....anyhoo...it is not until I stand next to other, smaller woman or see myself in pictures that I can see what other people see.  My upper arms are massive and dare I admit, my triceps flap in the wind.  I look like a pudgy line backer, and I am absolutely certain that when I play golf with my petite golf gal-pal, everyone looks at me and thinks I am the "man" in the relationship...just once, I want them to think I am the "girl"!

I am not sure how I developed Fat-Blindness.  I had always been taught not to have a scale in my house, due to the mental torture this can inflict.  Weight fluctuates on a whim and I didn't want to become obsessive.  I had also mastered that age old trick of telling myself it was not I who was heavy, but rather the scale that was malfunctioning.  "Oh!", I would say, "That scale is easily 10 pounds heavier than the scale I normally use!"  I "denialed" myself right into obesity.  My husband loved me unconditionally, I had two kids, I worked and thus stressed my ass off, all while packing on my invisible poundage.   I guess it happened so insidiously, I failed to notice it.

My kids are growing up and I am finding more time for myself.  I realize that I am tired of looking shitty in clothes...muffin tops suck.  I don't want to be the biggest girl in the room any more.  I want to finally show the people in my life, including my husband, how I see myself by making it my reality.  There are many obstacles that will make this journey difficult.  Being over 40 apparently doesn't help and the fact that I have hypothyroidism (my historical crutch) makes weight loss very difficult.  I am a stress eater at a very stressful time in my life and my daily schedule is packed.

The first thing I realized I had to do, was break down my prejudice against bathroom scales, and buy one.  I now weigh myself every morning (I used to do it in the evening, but my weight fluctuated so sporadically, I made a rule that I would only weigh-in right after my morning bathroom break, and NEVER weigh myself when I have my period).  The number on the scale is pretty objective evidence of my true weight, and despite my Fat-Blindness, I am hard pressed to deny what the scale is telling me.  I don't like what I see right now.  Since I have started this journey, the number is decreasing, and I actually am looking forward to weighing myself each morning to see the number drop.  I know that having the scale there will also help me keep my weight in check and tell me when the number starts to creep in the wrong direction.  I am hopeful that this will help me deal with my Fat-Blindness and keep the weight off.

I am also re-working my relationship with food.   When I open the refrigerator I am working hard to identify the difference between eating because I am hungry and eating because it is like a drug that conquers my stress or boredom.  I have also self diagnosed myself as suffering from Adrenal Fatigue, which is a condition caused by chronic stress.  This is strongly associated with weight retention and a number of other symptoms.  For this, I have been taking a natural supplement, and I have to say, it is helping.

I have set this goal for a number of reasons: Firstly, for myself, so that I can again realize the woman I believe myself to be, secondly for the obvious health benefits that being fit brings, and finally for my husband, who in the next decade of our marriage, deserves a hot body prancing proudly passed him when naked...he is an ass-man after all!  Don't I owe us both a firm, perky ass?

This isn't going to be easy and lord knows I have started many many times in the past.  I am in the zone right now, which is a strange line that one needs to cross when starting out on a self improvement goal.  It is the empowering sense of control and determination, not unlike the feeling of winning a race or achieving a long fought victory.  I quite like how it feels, I just need to hold onto it.   I am working out every day, including riding my spin bike at home whilst watching cheesy episodes of "Glee" on Netflix (43 minutes long exactly).  I am running again, which I realized I was not ready to give up.  I am counting calories and trying hard to look at food less as a comfortable old friend, but more as fuel for better health.  I am going to make this my lifestyle going forward and can already feel it working...

MF'ing Trick or Treaters!!!

Image by Foxtongue.

I’ve lost some faith in the kids in our neighborhood.  On Halloween, we are out trick- or-treating with our own kids, and so leave a bowl of candy at our front door. We live on the outskirts of the more dense and lucrative trick or treating grounds, and get only five or six kids at best.  I, however, put out enough candy for fifty.

Most of the years that we have done this, there is candy left in the bowl when we come home.  This year was different.  Every last stick of candy was gone.  It was obvious that some kid came along, saw an opportunity, and seized it.  All of it!  I have been wrestling with my disappointment over this action ever since. 

What quality or character within this particular child or group of children made this okay?  Did they not pause to consider the next kid who might come by?  Was there no internal compass that directed him that this might be wrong or that cleaning us out was not how our system was intended to work?  He was not happy with enough or a little extra, this greedy little trick-or-treater , took all he could get away with simply because he could.  What was the difference between the child who took an appropriate amount of candy from the bowl and the one who took it all?

Some might argue I was asking for it.  Why wouldn’t the kid take all the candy that was there?   So easily accessible, how foolish was I to have left out our candy without protection or controlled distribution.   Would not have most opportunistic, trick-or-treaters, done the same?  After all, wasn’t the point of Halloween to fill your bag with as much candy as possible?  Candy is the currency of youth!  This fortunate and resourceful individual had simply capitalized on a windfall opportunity to rapidly increase his confectionary stash.  With very little effort he had surpassed his evenings’ haul… at one stop!

Others might agree that there is some moral obligation associated with deciding how much candy one ought to take.  Should not the child have been appreciative that there was candy available, take only what was reasonably fair, and leave the rest for someone else?  Imagine the sad little faces of the kids who came later and the bowl was empty.   I could completely understand the taking of a few extra pieces as a reasonable way to take advantage of the situation.  I am sure that fellow had been at many a doorway, calling “Trick-or-treat” and been handed only one, lousy piece of candy. 

Perhaps this was the reason for his excess.  Candy was distributed many different ways and the quality of candy varied from house to house.  At some houses, candy was dispersed in a tightly controlled manner.  One or two pieces were given by the homeowner, and the selection was random, perhaps with this child receiving something he didn’t like, like a crappy bag of pretzels for instance.   At other houses, the bowl of goodies was held out to him, and he was able to choose whichever kind he wanted, but the homeowner would quickly stop him from taking more than one or two pieces.   This type of regulation required him to work more houses and risk getting things he didn’t want.

In an ideal world, he would have open access to each house’s candy and be able to take as much of exactly what he wants.  Were this type of opportunity made available to each trick-or-treater, each house would quickly run out of candy.  If all of the kids got wind of this, a frenzied candy grab might ensue, whereby each child would target a home, be the first there, and quickly plunder the candy holdings.   Halloween trick-or-treating would be over in moments, with an unequal distribution of Halloween wealth.  The open marketed, unregulated candy bowl, runs the risk of being completely depleted by the few who lack the guiding principle obliging them to consider the consequences of their actions on others with the same desire.   The redistribution of candy wealth in such a system would quickly result in a vast sweets disparity and Halloween as we know it would break down, perhaps even collapse.

The faster more aggressive kids would get candy, whereas the younger, slower kids would get none.  More clever kids could even formulate elaborate plans to insure that they had first and unfair access to the candy bowls.  Getting all they can when they can, is the underlying desire of all trick-or-treaters, but some act on it, and some don’t.

Perhaps this is a winner take all mentality.  Is the failure to take all of the candy a sign of weakness or, similarly, is taking all of it when the opportunity presents itself, a sign of strength? Is it akin to a Halloween demonstration of the survival of the fittest or of the one most willing to do whatever it takes to meet their end goal: to have the most candy?  

How will I handle this next year?  Will I take the chance and put the bowl out again?  Will I put a sign out, reminding each child of the expectation that they take only what is fair?  After all, they have demonstrated that without regulation, they will act in a manner that results in unfair candy access and candy inequity.  Most homeowners know this, and so closely regulate how their candy is dispersed, to insure that these resources are spread evenly over the trick-or-treating population.  To put it simply, they control candy wealth in the neighborhood to make sure each child has access to the same opportunities and therefore the same amount of candy.

To save myself the brain damage, perhaps I won’t put out any candy at all next year.