FULL BLOWN BATTLE
Fighting The Middle
I’ve always considered my daily workouts my life-long “diet plan”, allowing me to eat what I wanted. Sometimes it worked, other times, well, not so much. I think everyone can relate, right? My weight has bounced from 150 to 120. Currently I’m hovering at 140 (+/- depending on the phase of the moon).
These days, no matter how hard I work out, or how many days I work out, my belly has puffed, my thighs have taken on a mind of their own (12” shorts, please), and my waistline changes with every heartbeat. Everything is dropping, dropping, dropping! My skin is thinning, especially my hands and arms, and apparently minor bumps and cat scratches are now life events involving blood and bandages. Anyone else relate?
Now, let’s talk about fat re-distribution. My body fat seems to move daily, even in my sleep. My metabolism is slowing to a near standstill and thanks to the loss of my subcutaneous facial fat, my face is also making a rapid descent. Auuggh!
Lastly, gravity. Everyone’s ultimate nemesis. Of all the aging processes, gravity is the one I take most personally. Saggy face? Check. Saggy neck? You bet. Saggy you-know-whats (yes men, you’re not safe from this either)? Saggy bottom? Also yes. Even my knees, my knees!
Oy, what’s a girl to do?
Every magazine, beauty article and self-help guru tells us to “embrace the change”, or, “highlight your favorite feature”, or my personal favorite, “beauty comes from how you feel, not just how you look.” I say how lovely and poetic. But really? REALLY? I think not!
Let’s be honest: most of us are not exactly embracing or highlighting or glowing on the inside. We are waging a full-blown battle. We’re arming ourselves with magic creams, face injections, fat-reducing shots, suctioning and even scalpels. And I say. . . go for it!
Some of us, however, are hanging out in the middle ground. Me, I’m sticking with my magic Oil of Olay bottles and jars. (By the way, can someone tell me what is an Olay and how do they squeeze the oil out?) My miracle potions don’t pull my face up, and no, they don’t erase my under-eye hollows. But they do make my skin feel “re-puffed”.
And there’s the clothing situation, right? Do your clothes still technically fit but look entirely different than when you bought them? Mine too. Pants and skirts suddenly tighter and narrower. Blouses and tees feel like they’ve shrunk across your back? Yup. And, oh joy, do you have a delightful bulge all around your top underpinning?
Well my readers, welcome to the party. So glad you could make it. The great body-fat migration is in full swing. I never know when I’m going have a “fat day”. I’m so thankful for tunic shirts!
So here we are together, faces and bodies changing, adjusting, and we’re watching it in slo-mo, like the murder scene in some horror flick. But we don’t cringe, and we don’t run screaming into that good night. We oil it, pat it, plump it, fill it, suck it out and re-fill it. We mend and re-stitch it. We do whatever we need to because we’re not going down with a fight, right?