I keep getting compliments. How nice. You see I have lost a few kilos. Really only a dress size and a bit…I don’t do scales.
It all started in winter with feeling blue and going for walks to get an endorphin hit. Just around the block at first and then further and faster. I wanted to make 11 days so that it might become a kind of junior level healthy habit. Don’t ask me to run.
And low and behold, it stuck and I have been walking twice, sometimes thrice, a day ever since. Good on me…yes it feels great and I enjoy both the morning and evening walks because the air is cool and fresh and all the little animals are at play…our beautiful birds in particular. There is nothing quite so cute as three fat Magpies toddling across the road in the mornings, like a group of old men scurrying off to a meeting. And just once you should see a family of Rainbow Lorikeets flit from Bottlebrush to Bottlebrush, flaring the most brilliant greens, reds and blues on their wings as they go in search of nectar.
I am enjoying my active habit. But anyone would think I had made some kind of significant scientific discovery, negotiated world peace, or unlocked the secret of turning common metal into gold.
That is the currency of thinness and it troubles me. Was I not complimentworthy before? Did people find me repulsive then?
Today, in a world devoid of meaning for so many people, thinness and fitness are about as close as we get to “godliness”. Our bodies are indeed a temple and if it isn’t a beautiful one – watch out – be prepared to be despised before you even open your mouth.
And judged, oh yes, the judgements are biblical too. Let thee who eats a multitude of calories and exerciseth not, be banished from the land and cast into darkness…for the Kingdom of western heaven has no place for cellulite and tyres that are spareth.
I have seen little exchanges on Facebook and Twitter – now that it is all mobile on your I-phone..the snide remarks about the fat chick on the train eating a doughnut and wondering why she is fat are out there in the ether, biting into the souls of the not so thin.
The fact is if she was a size 8 and eating that same oily doughnut no one (except my mother, who still thinks it is very impolite to eat in public) would give a tweet about it, now would they?
And while I have been made fully aware by an hysterical media of the “obesity epidemic” may I just throw in my two cents worth and say – you won’t make fat people thin by telling them how bad, sad, ugly, unsightly, unhealthy, and burdensome they are.
Lashing people with a sense of disgrace has never really done much to change the behaviour of human beings. Since when have the despised turned into beautiful butterflies?
Despite all this, now that I am a teeny bit thinner – I do feel the need to cast off more pounds.
I am putting it down to a desire to be 15 again. Then I could eat hotdogs with sauce and butter and not put on an ounce…then I wore a sparkling green bikini to the beach to show off my dark brown tan and sunkissed mane. Ahh…yes those were the days.
But really, I feel better lighter. I will never be a size 8 again…there was a short interlude when I was breastfeeding that the weight just poured off and I was a svelte yummy mummy…it was cool.
I felt great, but it didn’t stop my husband finding someone younger (God …we were only in our 20s…younger!). Ironically she was a whole lot more voluptuous that me.
So in a beauty, youth, thin obsessed world I am thinking I will go for what I like – what makes me feel good. I want to be a tad thinner, I want to be stronger and I want to be happier. Let’s hope I can get there.
In the meantime may I suggest that we love our fatties a little more, offer to go walking or shoot hoops with them and make them yummy salads for dinner – that has got to be better than being mean and discarding their hearts and souls because their bodies are not perfect.
