The perfect weight.

I have been surfing about the be squillion blogs out there which focus on weight and dieting and it is starting to really depress me. There are many that take photos of the scales as they stand on them – like you have got to be kidding – now way for one am I going near that evil machine – it hates me – and two – it is smart little thing that remembers your weight – and then goes and tiddle tats to your husband who says things like – “I see my assets are growing.” All in a loving and joking manner.. but still highlighting that all in not right in the world.

The irony is that I am happy – well most of the time. I know I am fat, but I am happy and most of the time I think I look ok or even quite nice. I make an effort with makeup and dressing, underwear that matches and even lingerie. I am happy when I don’t think about it or accidentally catch a sidewards glance of myself in the mirror. Then I catch a glimpse of another reality and I sigh wondering how a different life may have been if I was thinner somehow.

I think for people who are overweight the enormity of the task ahead is just so great – so overwhelming that is simply isn’t an option to start. I have lost and gained weight over the years – having been on a diet for over 25 years now – well on and off….. and the crappy thing is when you start to lose weight and are really chuffed at how you are going – some idiot makes a sideways comment – or a well meaning relative says something like – oh you have such a pretty face, it’s a pity you can’t lose weight – and you may have lost heaps already! Makes me just head to the dessert buffet and think sod it – its just not worth the denial, pain, suffering and anxiety of counting calories, ensuring your heartbeat is over a certain level for a certain time and organizing your life around personal trainers and the gym – who are full of know it all skinny wenches in skin tight matching outfits who I am sure are paid to hang out there to make you feel bad about your baggy tshirt and sagging sweatpants. I did go and try and buy some groovy gym gear once – but apparently you can’t get anything remotely fashionable or nice unless you are a size 14 – like – if I was a size 14 I wouldn’t be bothering to go to the gym.. hello?!

So what is the perfect weight? If you're choosing your target number based on a picture of bikini-clad super model taped to your refrigerator door, or on a yellowing photograph of yourself in your wedding dress from three decades ago, your goal-weight expectations might be a tad unrealistic. Times, and "ideal weight" guidelines, have definitely changed. If your notion of what your body size should be is based on what you see on the TV screen or in the pages of fashion magazines, you are definitely dooming yourself to failure. The fact is, most of us don't look like actresses or models, and to attempt to make our bodies match theirs is unnecessarily punishing, if not impossible. They have full time chefs, nannies and personal trainers, live in a bubble of unreality totally detached from mortgages and the rising cost of petrol. Besides – you are a different person now than that idealistic lass in the white frock and supermodels now days are usually 12 years old and very unlikely to be able to spell ‘birth” much less done it.

Sigh…. All the reading I do keeps harping on about how you feel within yourself is the best weight. Maybe if I banned any reflective surface I might be ok with this?

A little Nip and Tuck

A good friend of mine had the lap band operation a number of months ago. She has lost nearly 30kg and I have got to say – she looks amazing. She sheepishly came over the other day bearing gifts of her old ‘fat clothes’. She said she wasn’t going to give them to me but at the last moment brought them over – she didn’t want me to feel bad.

I nearly chocked laughing. First – wow – what a gift to be given a huge amount of her clothes – all really nice stuff and in MY SIZE!!! Whoo hoooo! and secondly – what sort of message is her fear? That she didn’t want to admit to me that I was fat? Umm I kinda know – I have a mirror.. that she is now better than me? Again – negative – she is doing her thing and I am so supportive and delighted for her.

I was so happy going through the large bag of clothes – I have never been much of a clothes horse myself – I hve always been a bigger person – and have always struggled to find anything that fits. Going to a charity store is the highlight for me – and I have become handy with creative alterations. This has given me fairly low range of colour and fashion choices – so I tend to hang out in black – which was good when I went through my gothic phase. Now I just look like an Italian widow.

I now own ( count them) 7 pairs of jeans.. wow – I have only ever had at most 2! She has a great style – very romantic and medieval – so that really suits my style too – I am loving the flowing tops with long droopy sleeve look.

Its all been about lack for me- I don’t spend money on myself or to buy clothes and worry and fret if I have to go and buy new underwear! I don’t tend to have many new clothes in my wardrobe and if I can admit this – I have some things in there that are 20 years old ( humm – might be back in fashion again!)

Anyway – getting back to my friend – She was very sensible about the whole operation and did a lot of research on it. She is aware that this is a life time commitment and he can never eat food again – not drink a lot of fluids at one time ( so out goes cocktail nights and drinking sessions) She is able to eat only mushed up foods – like baby food and only a very small amount of it.

I do actually long to lose weight – so that I too can walk proudly into any store and grab something off the rack, try it on and it fits! I don’t know if I would be prepared to go to this length though. I have to admit that I like eating, I love the taste, the feel and sensation of food. Though again – in saying that – I am sensible with my choices of food – no junk food, little processed stuff; all organic fruits and veges and good variety of proteins other than meat. I have to admit that it’s the quantity. Is this operation the one for me then? Would it really help me?

This girlfriend is planning to go to Thailand to get her bits nipped and tucked. With so much weight loss, she is complaining that all her bits are saggy. I started to look into websites and companies who offer this service – firstly out of curiosity then as a bit of a mission. The cost of some of these cosmetic surgeries is over half what it is in Australia – and that is with your accommodation as well! We aren’t talking shabby rooms either – 5 star resorts where you just hang out to recuperate and heal before you get on a plane back to home and work or family.

I haven’t had a specific quote for me done – but I am seriously thinking about it – I mean – just get the quote – at least I’d know then. To dream perhaps. To work a way to earn or generate that cash. Is it ok to get surgery done? I don’t even think I care if I have scars everywhere afterwards – how bad is that? What if I went and they said – sorry you are too fat to have surgery? How bad would that be?

Its been a big barrier for me – my weight – an insurmountable wall I cannot seem to break through, climb over or dissolve. Its one thing to say – I am fine with where I am, but another thing to think there is a glimmer of looking normal, of fitting in of being proud of my figure and of seeing the look on your partners eyes.

I am ‘fine’ with were I am at the moment – really – most days I don’t think about what might be or what I could be if I were skinnier. With every challenge I jump boots and all and don’t allow much to stand in my way. There are other days that I just hid in the house and plan to stay there forever – I am so disgusted with my appearance. It’s the momentary glimpses into the mirror that take me by surprise – the ones where you cannot believe that it is you staring back at you – ugly, fat and completely unnnatractive. It is these days that the credit card needs to be hidden and the brochures from Thailand be stored in a far away place.

Yeah – you are right.. I’m not ‘fine’.

Be Yourself.. but who are you?

“Be yourself – Everyone else is taken.”


I can’t remember where I saw this written – but its been a scribbled note in my purse and in my organizer for years.

It doesn’t matter how may courses or workshops, seminars, books I have read or retreats I attend, I manage to find a way to hide the truth deep inside and am so well versed with protective lies, that its hard to strike the truth. If anything – going to these things just better equips me with more mumbo jumbo crap to layer around me.

I went to a workshop with women only and went in with the intention of stripping away all the layers, the practiced phrases and pretenses and just be, just experience and be myself. The old chestnut – who are you came up. I am a liar, I am a fake, I am a bloody good one. The facilitator seemed to want to know where this was coming from – if I knew it or felt it – I both know and feel it and then went on about living in your head and not in your heart etc.. yeah yeah – like I understand that, I appreciate that I have a propensity in living in my head – but I feel I have easy access to my heart as well and can snap into that at any given moment.

So – be yourself. Who are you? Again – such a practiced actress such as myself, I am able to keep this conversation and communication up for much longer than most facilitators allow the time. Most people cannot get past a few moments without repeating themselves or going blank.. and there is is the fake. So practiced at this – It doesn’t strip anything down – just gleams the veneer up again.

I saw some photos someone had taken of me and posted on facebook I must have such a huge ego, such a big view of myself. I hated them. I hate most photos- but the candid ones were awful It was like I was looking at a parody – a character – who was that old obese woman with the double chins, that dreadful gut, the hair like some mad womans breakfast?

I am really struggling here – to be happy in the skin and space I am in at the moment. I want to just hide from the world, to close the doors and not to come out, to wear kaftans and sit in the bath all day.

Don’t have any other words at the moment.