Surprise! I'm not thin!

So several months ago I found the wild and wily ways of a brunette bombshell.  Yesterday Meg posted a post (?) entitled "perfect bodies, cellulite, and a little rebellion."

Thank you, Meg.  Thank you for doing what you do so well - writing what I'm thinking, even though you don't know me and I don't know you.  You captured it to perfection: 

"i don't have a perfect body.

i have cellulite; i will always have cellulite....

my body isn't perfect. i have cellulite and fleshy hips and more moles than a person can count....

but holy hell if i don't love this body of mine....

and certainly there are mornings i wish i knew what it was to be blond with thinner hips and perkier boobs....

i lost years of my life to wanting to lose weight.

and then, not too terribely long ago, i realized that the desire to change my body was the least interesting thing about me.

(that desire is in fact the least interesting thing about every woman i know).

you see, i think to love our bodies in a world or a society or whatever-you-want-to-call-it that tells us we shouldn't is a powerful act of rebellion--an even greater act of love.

i want to know what it is to live to in a world, where we, as women, say enough. enough of this nonsense. and okay, so we're not there yet, i know that. but at least let me add my voice to my betters and my peers who have gone before me and said, there's more to life than this, and so i love my body just as it is."

The thing is, I'm 51.  51-and-a-half, yesterday, to be exact.  And Meg?  She's NOT 51.  She's MUCH younger.  And she's come to this epiphany so much earlier in her life, and that's the AWESOME part of it - she'll have a much happier, more balanced life because of it. 

It took me a LONG time to realize I'm not my body.  Sure, I could lose few pounds.  Can't we all?  I could probably lose 20-30 and still be completely healthy, not too skinny, and just fine. 

But if I don't?

So.What.

You know what people need to realize?  That our husbands love us.  The us we are now, not the us we'll be in 30 pounds.  Our families and friends love us, the us we are now, not the us we'll be in 30 pounds.  And we have to learn to love us, the us we are now, not the us we'll be in 30 pounds.  They love and we need to learn to love the PEOPLE we are, not the weight we are.

And I'm getting there.  Yes, I'm still a WW member, I still hope to lose a few pounds sooner rather than later.  But I am SO DARNED PROUD that I went for a walk with my husband yesterday, only a 1/2 mile walk around our neighborhood, but we went for a walk.  THEN I went to the gym.  The gym I'm paying for each month but not using.  And I went inside!!!  I didn't just drive by on the way to Dunkin' Donuts for a Lite Iced Caramel Latte.  And I rode the stationary bike, I rode it for 4-and-a-half miles!  Okay, 10 minutes at no incline, 10 minutes at a incline of 2, and 10 minutes at no incline again.  But I rode it.

Slow and steady does the job.  Eventually I'll be back at a steeper incline, at a faster rate (although I'll always be walking, not running).  And eventually I'll even use the machines to work my upper body, those spaghetti arms (they're floppy like cooked spaghetti, NOT thin and firm like uncooked spaghetti!)...

But you know what?  I'll never be skinny.  I'll never be a size zero.  (Which, btw, as long as we're talking here, IS.NOT.A.REAL.SIZE.  It was invented a few years ago, and as far as I'm concerned, just means I'm really wearing a 10 or 12, NOT a 12 or 14!  It forced me to add 2 more sizes onto my "real" size.  Tell me THAT doesn't suck the big one!)

And that's okay.  It's okay not to be pin-thin.  It's okay to have a bit of a big butt, a stomach that's not quite as flat as I'd like it to be (and btw, Dr. K., NOT cool to tell me I can't blame my tummy on those fibroids I'm sporting!  I've used that excuse for a while and no one called me on it!), boobs that aren't quite as perky as I'd like them to be (hubby says they're perfect for my body!  So there!), flabby arms and thighs...  It's okay.

Meg, LOVE your blog, and thanks for putting it all out there, that it's okay to have cellulite, and that the greatest achievement we could hope for would be to love our bodies as they are, not to lose those 30 pounds!  If only all of us could see it your way!!!