January
It’s a new year, and with that of course, New Year’s resolutions. And always, always, there’s the weight issue. It affects us all. Even when you weren’t overweight on November 1st by the time January rolls around its almost guaranteed that you will need to lose a few pounds. Or think you do, after indulging for the last couple of months.
So we try to leave fudge and cookies, dips and hors d’oevres and other festive gathering food behind and walk on the righteous path of diet and exercise. Some of us will join a gym and actually show up a few times until it conflicts with our real life, which frequently consists of just taking it easy, reading the paper, eating a slow breakfast. We go less and less, the impetus being lost. Or we start jogging or bicycling or some other outdoor activity until one day it rains and darn, that throws the whole routine off.
Bookstores shift from holiday gift books and home for the holiday decoration books to diet and improvement tomes. There’s a book, a diet for everyone, regardless of lifestyle because weight loss is one of those issues that we all seem to agree upon. Unlike politics or religion, it doesn’t involve controversy, or beliefs. It just is. Not obese? That’s no reason not to obsess. In fact most people thinking of diets and/or exercise probably aren’t. It’s just that everyone thinks they could lose five pounds, or ten, saying we want to be more healthy.
As much as I am enchanted by food, I mostly am able to strike a balance between too much and not enough. I attempt to reconcile what I think is a real weight for me, what is my comfort level. It appears to be something between the "ideal" weight and the point where my clothes get uncomfortably tight. My reasoning is a sensible one; I don't want to have to acquire a whole new wardrobe.
Years ago I decided I wanted to lose five pounds from what was a pretty okay weight to begin with, in order to be “underweight”. Then, I reasoned, I could enjoy indulging in beautiful bakery stuff or ordering the fried appetizers plate in restaurants without guilt, But weight loss doesn’t quite work that way, I found. For me anyway. Once I had achieved the desired weight I was filled with missionary zeal. If I could lose those 5 lbs. well, I could continue on and lose 10 pounds thereby being even more in control. It’s about more than numbers and exact weight I suspect.It probably says more about a style and desire for perfection that comes from somewhere but I'm not sure where. Whatever,I don’t have all the answers but I do know that it doesn’t seem anyone is ever content with the weight they’re at. There’s always that feeling that you are at least a few pounds over the right weight. Whatever that might be.
By the way, I never did lose those 10 pounds. While my self-righteous disciplined side argued that since I could lose 5 pounds so easily, I could lose more, my “I love bread” side argued that since I was at this so-called ideal weight or “underweight” I could splurge and eat just a little more of this and that, which was, after all, the point. So I ended up pretty much back where I started; thinking that if I could just lose five more pounds…