As I stare down at the scale, I have that feeling of dread…like when you find a hair in your soup or the man on the bank line in front of you is wearing a ski mask. Uggh!! I’ve gained another pound. How did I do it? Too little rhubarb, too much spiked seltzer! I step on and off the scale a few times. First I remove my socks, then my earrings, and finally in desperation I fling off the wedding ring. But the number doesn’t change. I am packing on pounds faster than a sumo wrestler on steroids.
You know you’re overweight when you step into the elevator and a stampede of people run out fearing the weight capacity has been exceeded. You notice that it’s not just shoes, but clothes that come in wide sizes. You pull a disappearing act with the bowl of Halloween candy. When you go to the car wash, they find Tootsie Roll wrappers under the front seat of your Volvo, a melted Hershey’s chocolate bar sticking to the registration in your glove compartment, and half-eaten candy eyeballs you got on sale at Walmart hidden in the trunk.
Everyone knows your metabolism slows as you get older. So why aren’t I working out? I have been coming up with a variety of lame excuses like: the dryer ate my gym socks, my husband likes a woman with meat on her bones, and I have an embarrassing hole in my sneaker.
Okay, so by now you realize that I make a lot of excuses for myself. All summer long I work hard to control my weight and stay fit, but as we head into the holidays my good intentions fly south for the winter. Like a lot of women, I have gained and lost the same ten pounds for my entire adult life. I was talking to a woman recently at a luncheon. She told me, “I hate looking in the mirror every day and seeing another mole, or fold under my chin, or gray hair.”
“Let me guess?” I added. “You can’t stand feeling over the hill.”
“Yeah,” she said patting the bottom of her chin. “It STINKS!!”
I feel that same way about my middle age bulge. Why can’t I ever get a handle on this? I’ve done some soul-searching which leads to questions like, “If Marie Osmond can do it why can’t I?”
Or this: “Where is Richard Simmons when you need him to tell you how to get a terrific workout from a chair?” And: “Does Dr. Oz know the Wizard of Oz?” Perhaps I just don’t have the motivation or discipline that all the fitness gurus claim you can muster with the latest fad diet, pill or exercise plan.
My idea of a workout is going to the Y and sitting on a mat and doing a few Diary of a Wimpy Kid type stretches. Then I’ll give it a go for a few minutes on the elliptical machine. I barely break a sweat before my bad knee starts aching or my trick elbow starts to twitch. I don’t think Fitness Magazine is going to put me on the cover anytime soon. So next time you go to the beach and think there is a huge, hairy porpoise or a whale struggling in the water, don’t call the Coast Guard. It’s only me.
Editor's Note:This post was originally published in October 2014 and has been revamped. Unfortunately, my figure has remained the same.
haha I feel you, oh gosh I so need to love exercise! Why am I not one of those people who love it??? I’ll be the white pale girl on the beach next to you xx #mg
The most exercise I usually get at the gym is when I can’t find a parking space near the front door.
I told him I had proof – eleven lonely, pathetic socks, without partners to walk through life with. So, he confessed and shared the ancient secret of disappearing socks with me – and I, in turn, am sharing it with you.
I knew someday we’d have an answer to the sock mystery. So do socks, as comic Jerry Seinfeld believes, plan an escape from the hamper the night before? But why wait that long? I’m thinking they might be plotting in the package at the store.
Good blog post. I absolutely love this website.
Thanks!