May 12, 2018:
As a child I received so much grief for being skinny. Later the entire society caught up to my body shape. Thanks right-wing-dominated misogynistic fashion industry!
It was a shock when I began gaining weight. For years I'd tried. Cake, chips, chocolate shakes, very large meals, soda, lotso carbs. No change. Steady at exactly 178.
One day I went to buy a suit. I tried the jacket in my size: 38. Too tight! It must be mislabeled. So I tried another. Too tight! Ohhhhhhh…
Thus began the battle. All my bad habits: comfort food, junk food, fatty food, fattening food, sugars. No amount of exercise made a difference: fat on the tummy, fat on the face, broadening uncontrollably. That isn't me in the mirror.
So that discipline becomes the requirement. After a lifetime of lack of discipline. New habits, new routine, a certain amount of sacrifice, a new life of constant exercise. Healthy! Not what I'd become used to.
I am now zeroing in in my traditional weight, although the body shape is of course different. With age there's less muscle, there's more fat, fat is distributed in different places. The struggle then will be to regain muscle in the places where it used to be.
Even then, it won't be the same. Loss of collagen, loss of elasticity: face drops, becomes jowly. Loss of hair, duh. Gray, white, pasty-pale. Aged. Inevitable! Welcome.
I'm glad to have the weight off. To feel more like myself for the time that remains.