a small question of size



A friend and I were recently talking about my attempts to lose weight. Between walking and eating organic foods, I managed to strip myself of eight pounds. Only to go on vacation and gain back just under four pounds in two weeks. My original goal was to lose 15 pounds. But like I told my friend, that less-than-lofty goal would just put me squarely at my regular, 15 pounds overweight status. Which is just fine.

Like most women, I’ve spent a lifetime worrying about my weight. Even when I wasn’t worrying about it, that number was still on my mind. Oversized and in lights, like a movie theater’s marquee. Crash diets to slough off the extra baggage included the grapefruit diet (yup, it was all grapefruit, all the time), diet pills (from speed to OTC drugs, I’ve tried them all), gulping diuretics by the handful and my favorite diet, fasting. Drinking organic juices for a day and then not eating at all for several days.

I found that all of the diets worked well. If you don’t count the bitchiness, the gnawing hunger and the migraine headaches. They worked. Until I stopped taking the pills. Started eating solid foods again. Then I gained weight almost as quickly as it fell off.

I was well schooled in my eating disorder from a young age. The older gymnasts made dieting more competitive than doing back flips on the balance beam or executing a well-orchestrated floor routine. It was easy. And I so wanted to be like them. Skinny. Wearing high-cut leotards that emphasized an angular frame. Hair tied back tight. Smoking in the locker room and smirking at the younger girls.

I wasted far too much of my teen years thinking about myself and how I looked, instead of just enjoying my life. It makes me sad to think about it now. My twenties were spent fumbling around, trying to find myself. In the early part of the decade, I wore too much eye makeup and stuck contact lenses in my eyes, accepting the resulting burn as the price paid for beauty. By age 27, I learned to like myself without makeup and to love my glasses. But I still fought to wear a size six. Even if it meant laying on the bed to zip up my zipper. That size meant a lot to me. And it was hard to leave it behind.

But then something happened the year I turned 30. I finally became comfortable in my skin. Nowhere near as skinny as I was when I was 18. Rounder and softer than I was in my 20’s. With lines that appear like a flash every time I laugh.

I always thought I had great self confidence. The bold one in my group of friends. The one who never turns down a dare and isn’t afraid to try anything once. But when I turned 30, I realized how it really feels to be confident. To be comfortable in my own skin. And that kind of confidence is sexy. It draws other people to you like a magnet.

I’m not going to be the prettiest, the youngest or the smartest (not by a long shot, ha ha) person in the room. If I went to the gym every day and sweat it out with the ogling steroid-ridden weight lifters, I still wouldn’t be “cut.” I have no angles or hard edges anywhere on my body. I have a J. Lo that's in fierce competition with the original. Even my curves have curves.

What I am is myself. And I like it here.

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