Weighty Matters
I have not been feeling like myself lately. I know that most of that has to do with the fact that I am 40 pounds over my ideal weight of 130, which is still 15 pounds less than the weight that had me at a 36D bra size, medium underwear, and size 10 pants (which, with today's vanity sizing, would be a size 8, or even a 6)...
So I went to the gym this afternoon...partly to get in a "weight control" workout, but also to get out from under the eves of my apartment--large massies of sheetrock that that often feel like the crush of a womb/cocoon I long to break away from....
Cathy and I remarked to one another in last night's conversation that we live in an absurd artificial world where one must drive to attain exercise--and where we admonish people, in so many torturous ways, that they are too fat while we try to sell them any manner of unnecessary snack food items...which then makes losing any amount of weight an almost Herculean challenge.
It's strange how my weight stayed stable for the 4 years I worked retail--even though I ate fast food just about every evening I worked. And at absurdly late evening hours. I told Cathy that I don't eat fast food any more, but I also don't march up and down stairs at least four times a night and stand for roughly 5 hours at a time.
The way I see it, my body needs a great deal of stress and movement in order to lose any amount of weight. Quite frankly, I'm tired of putting my body thru 4 to 5 hours of stress and movement a night in order to lose weight. That's why I quit retail.
What's a girl to do? I imagine I could do a 2+ hour workout at the gym. Then again, who wants to spend 2+ hours at the gym?
I'm sure if I were younger, or already babe-a-liciously thin, that being at the gym for 2+ hours would be a party. Guys like to help workout babes. The middle aged broad in glasses and baggy t-shirt is just an interloper who's probably clueless about weights...
Doesn't matter that I used to be a body builder. Key words in that sentence are used to be.
At the gym I head to the treadmills, where I do a variable speed/incline workout--usually "Alpine Pass" or "Forest Trek." I like the workouts that sound like walks in the woods even though there aren't any woods for a couple of miles...
I am one of 30plus people on treadmills, most of them power-walking on flat surfaces. A few running. I hear the pound-pound-pound of someone running and look over to see a young man, in his 20's, in a baseball cap, brown t-shirt and black shorts, in some kind of trot and holding on to the top of the treamill's control panel the way old ladies lean on shopping carts in the grocery store.
If it's that hard to run on a treadmill at his age, I can't imagine the sorry shape he'll be in when he reaches my age...
And I watch the guys around me...none of them really muscle men, but many are more vain than the women. I'm struck by the guy next to me, who's wearing a very fancy track suit--jacket and all--and strange glasses that look almost like they're designed specifically for working out.
Hmmm....workout glasses?? how stylish!
At 4:30 in the afternoon, while I watch a smorgasboard of Dr. Phil, Hollywood plastic surgeries, CNN and Judge Judy, I notice how the guys, more than the girls, are dressed to impress...
perhaps waiting for that tight-assed stripper who's between shifts from Anthony's to come over and give them a nod...
Most of the women look the way I feel--a bit tired, and rather disgusted that they have to waste time in a gym getting exercise when they could be doing something far more fun and constructive.
If we all could just think of what it is that would be fun, constructive, and jhave the added benfit of helping us keep our weight in check.
And I think again about E-Diets...and Weight Watchers...and other diet plans. And it begins to bother me even more about my weight, that I can't be happy just the way I am because there are all these messages around me, all this pressure, that guilts me into thinking that I should do my best to try to have that body I had when I was in my late 20's...that great-looking un-traumatized body that only comes, quite truthfully, once in a lifetime....
And then I think, of what Ponzi said to me at SXSW--about having style....and I think maybe I'm still able to pull off looking good at a size 14/16...
Honestly, though, I'd be most happy if I could go for a walk without having to drive somewhere to do it and without needing a machine to perform it.
yeah, in my dreams...
So I went to the gym this afternoon...partly to get in a "weight control" workout, but also to get out from under the eves of my apartment--large massies of sheetrock that that often feel like the crush of a womb/cocoon I long to break away from....
Cathy and I remarked to one another in last night's conversation that we live in an absurd artificial world where one must drive to attain exercise--and where we admonish people, in so many torturous ways, that they are too fat while we try to sell them any manner of unnecessary snack food items...which then makes losing any amount of weight an almost Herculean challenge.
It's strange how my weight stayed stable for the 4 years I worked retail--even though I ate fast food just about every evening I worked. And at absurdly late evening hours. I told Cathy that I don't eat fast food any more, but I also don't march up and down stairs at least four times a night and stand for roughly 5 hours at a time.
The way I see it, my body needs a great deal of stress and movement in order to lose any amount of weight. Quite frankly, I'm tired of putting my body thru 4 to 5 hours of stress and movement a night in order to lose weight. That's why I quit retail.
What's a girl to do? I imagine I could do a 2+ hour workout at the gym. Then again, who wants to spend 2+ hours at the gym?
I'm sure if I were younger, or already babe-a-liciously thin, that being at the gym for 2+ hours would be a party. Guys like to help workout babes. The middle aged broad in glasses and baggy t-shirt is just an interloper who's probably clueless about weights...
Doesn't matter that I used to be a body builder. Key words in that sentence are used to be.
At the gym I head to the treadmills, where I do a variable speed/incline workout--usually "Alpine Pass" or "Forest Trek." I like the workouts that sound like walks in the woods even though there aren't any woods for a couple of miles...
I am one of 30plus people on treadmills, most of them power-walking on flat surfaces. A few running. I hear the pound-pound-pound of someone running and look over to see a young man, in his 20's, in a baseball cap, brown t-shirt and black shorts, in some kind of trot and holding on to the top of the treamill's control panel the way old ladies lean on shopping carts in the grocery store.
If it's that hard to run on a treadmill at his age, I can't imagine the sorry shape he'll be in when he reaches my age...
And I watch the guys around me...none of them really muscle men, but many are more vain than the women. I'm struck by the guy next to me, who's wearing a very fancy track suit--jacket and all--and strange glasses that look almost like they're designed specifically for working out.
Hmmm....workout glasses?? how stylish!
At 4:30 in the afternoon, while I watch a smorgasboard of Dr. Phil, Hollywood plastic surgeries, CNN and Judge Judy, I notice how the guys, more than the girls, are dressed to impress...
perhaps waiting for that tight-assed stripper who's between shifts from Anthony's to come over and give them a nod...
Most of the women look the way I feel--a bit tired, and rather disgusted that they have to waste time in a gym getting exercise when they could be doing something far more fun and constructive.
If we all could just think of what it is that would be fun, constructive, and jhave the added benfit of helping us keep our weight in check.
And I think again about E-Diets...and Weight Watchers...and other diet plans. And it begins to bother me even more about my weight, that I can't be happy just the way I am because there are all these messages around me, all this pressure, that guilts me into thinking that I should do my best to try to have that body I had when I was in my late 20's...that great-looking un-traumatized body that only comes, quite truthfully, once in a lifetime....
And then I think, of what Ponzi said to me at SXSW--about having style....and I think maybe I'm still able to pull off looking good at a size 14/16...
Honestly, though, I'd be most happy if I could go for a walk without having to drive somewhere to do it and without needing a machine to perform it.
yeah, in my dreams...
posted by Tish Grier at 5:31 PM
3 Comments:
you know, it's really weird that there are hardly any of those types at the gym I vist. Most of us are on the "pleasantly plump" side, other than the strippers and the 20-somethings.
I think we actually have the opposite up here--girls (and women) who wear clothes a size or two too small because they believe themselves to be that size. Seriously--women who are obviously not 36D's insisting they are 36D's and wondering why the wire in their bras always pops out....
perhaps it's the heftiness of rural New England that balances the anorexia of the Mid-Atlantic. If it all shifted, who knows what sort of chaos might ensue.
Hi D....I have to wonder about the guy you're talking about, and how big he might be. Some men who are most critical of heavy women are themsevles quite heavy...but I think for those of us over A Certain Age, that our weight has just as much to do with getting older and slower metabolisms as it does with how much we eat. One friend of mine who's very fit and exercises often, also watches everything she eats. Part of that is to avoid blood sugar problems (not related to being overweight) but also to keep her from getting "bulky" (as can easily happen to women who work out with weights.)
So, it's not just being tied to the computer, but also all those other factors of getting older. I just wish there was a way to get my metabolism to move quicker.
congrats suz on taking control of things in your own life! :-)
*what* we are eating has alot to do with how heavy people are at this point in history. There was a PSB program on the over-growing of corn crops and how that lead to a boom in cheap, corn-based snack foods. It was really creepy how the guy laid it all out...not necessarily a conspiracy theory, but more of an inability to properly plan.
We definitely should be more aware of our eating, but how do we solve the movement/exercise shortage? It's just very weird the way we're supposed to be less oil dependent but there's less mass transit and people's jobs are no longer walk-to types of jobs. (In most neighborhoods, there are *no* jobs other than as housekeepers.)
kind of scary sitting here watching it all evolve.
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