50 years and 50 over…

And maintaining self image for the next generation…

“When did I get so big?!!!” 

I’ve heard women say that for years and I always laughed, “Like duh, where do you think?”
I get it now!  I went up 30 pounds in four months and was not living on fast food burgers, consuming excessive amounts of food or living with extraordinary stress - the extra stress had taken up residence in my gut nine months prior to the body expansion project.  Actually, the hardest part of the fat accumulation was that I’d recently lost 20 pounds and was feeling down right good and hopeful that I taken the necessary steps to true weight management when the extra pounds dumped on me seemingly overnight. 

Now, it appears, I’m stuck at this size and my usual dietary efforts don’t even make a dent.  So back to the drawing board.  What has changed?  My age.  I have an eight year old daughter who is active and vibrant and I just turned 50.  I don’t feel old just overstuffed.  I’m fully aware that exercise is essential to my overall health but accepting the time investment needed before a significant shape change can be achieved is often my deal breaker.  I dive into the body renovation processes with grand intensions only to resort to habitual behaviors when the going gets tough or lengthy.  It’s like cleaning house, dusting is the most fun because you can see the instant improvement. 

Exercise and I have a love/hate relationship.  I love the results of physical exertion.  Inevitably, after walking or working out, I feel energized and possess a feeling of overall wellbeing but I hate doing it.  Meaning, once I’m out there walking, hiking, or running on a treadmill, I actually enjoy the workout.  It’s building in a routine so that the activity becomes a habit and not a burden is the issue.  I’m convinced that exercise plays a part in my body bulge or is at least a contributing factor.  Perimenopause, hormone imbalances, and life changing stress are the other factors. 

Along with all the personal battles with my own self image, I have my mother’s perspective to deal with real and imagined.  My mother exercises to relieve life’s slings and arrows.  I curl up on the couch and read or write stories.  All my hobbies are sedentary.  My mother, 0 body fat, is a competitive tennis player and works out at least once a day.  I try to fit in 200 words on the computer.  The question then is, do I belly up to a stack of Snicker’s bars or do I use the nagging voice in my head as a catalyst to seek a healthy routine and body image?

Making the realization that I’m beautiful as I am is the first step toward healthy living.  Without self acceptance, I’ll be forever obsessing instead of being proactive.  Not to negate the benefits of exercise - as I’ve said, it’s essential - but I’m still me regardless of the shell I’m inhabiting and to understand that unwaveringly while trying on clothes in a tiny (tiny to us big bottomed girls) dressing room boob to nose with my slight of build mother is, if not heartbreaking, character building!  Life has a way of throwing wrenches in to help repair the damage.  This happened to be one of those irreplaceable moments.
On this particular day two months ago, I needed a dress that fit physically and emotionally to wear for my father’s memorial service.  Nothing I had that was appropriate fit my current body.  In the end, the time shopping was a blessing for my mother and for me.  It got her out of the house and doing something we’d always enjoyed together and we focused on something that simply had to be done.  We spent many years together laughing about strange outfits in dressing rooms as I grew up and revisiting this pastime as grieving mother and daughter was extremely therapeutic for both of us.  Nordstrom however must have thought we were loony because of our excessive laughter.

That first step into the dressing room with my mother sitting in front of me was heart stopping.  But what could I say?  I’d never in my life asked her to leave before and now, when she needed support the most, wasn’t the time.  So I sucked it up, literally, and hoped I didn’t see the look in her eyes too clearly as I undress and expose all the lumps. 

Ultimately we decided I needed a tight undergarment to squish me down and keep from bouncing around.  My husband loves “the girls” new girth but in a little black dress, it’s nicer if the first thing people notice isn’t my monumental bra size!  Then came the real fun.   Imagine trying to put both feet into a deflated wad of elasticized stretchy (well they say stretchy) material meant to reduce your width two sizes.  Basically it’s designed to hold you in and keep you from sitting, walking, or breathing properly until you’re released from its hold at the end of the event.  I likened  the scene putting it on to something like watching an elephant delicately step into a bikini six sizes too small.  Needless to say, it was an experience and tears were running down my face by the time I finished, not from mortification, but from the sheer ridiculousness of what we do to ourselves to fit others expectations.

Mom and I both found dresses - the same one as it turned out- hers a size 6 and mine a size 16.  I told her not to worry, no one would ever know in a million years that the dress she had on was the exact same one on my body.  The beauty of the situation was simply how we conveyed the confidence of strong women at such a heart wrenching time in our lives.  I didn’t feel like the “big one” but like a loved daughter honoring her father. 

Supporting Information:

I’m currently walking as often as I can - although not daily, more than three times a week and for as long as fits my schedule.  This way it’s a treat and not an added burden.  I’m parking farther away when I go shopping, taking the stairs, and all those little things that add up in the end…like the French women do!

Diets don’t work for me.  If I’m dying to have something, I eat it…I’ve found, common sense, that depriving myself really doesn’t work at all and leads to binging on that food item I miss so much.  Sticking to fresh fruits, lots of veggies, and minimizing the usual culprits, refined sugar and simple carbohydrates, actually feels better too.  What do you know!? 

Trader Joe’s has great frozen steel cut oatmeal.  Just open the package, pop it in the microwave and, voila, a healthy and quick breakfast.  I don’t add anything to mine and usually half of one serving is all I can eat.

I know why I eat.  I eat to fill a void, to ease tension, to celebrate a great moment, to smother my poor self image…etc.  Now my job is to start working on my novel or going for that much needed walk instead of opening the box of cookies.  Most of the time it works. 

Trader Joe’s also has large bottles of green tea for just a dollar or two and often if I poor a glass of tea when the urge to eat for eating sake strikes, add lemon and guzzle, I feel satisfied.  If that’s not enough a handful of almonds does the trick.

I’m not breaking any weight loss speed records, but I’m feeling confident, more healthy, and I’ll check my progress in a few weeks and reassess if my casual procedure is paying off or not. 

Melissa is the mother of a six year old little girl, Madeline, and the wife of a former ship captain. She and her family just moved to Maine a year ago from Monterey, CA to experience a change in lifestyle and become middle aged entrepreneurs. After 22 years of teaching, Mel (Melissa) needed more time with her family and so she and a friend started Dancestones.org; the business of giving comfort through Maine’s rolled stones. Reading and Writing are her deepest passions- when she’s not collecting stones in remote areas of Maine!