Sing Fat Lady, Sing!

As I was finishing up my morning coffee I browsed through the Wall Street Journal Magazine.  It is filled with all things high end and high maintenence.  I look sometimes wishfully, sometimes snickering and sometimes resigned to the fact that the magazine is definitley not aimed toward me.

Now, I'm old, I'll admit, and as one ages one's perspective can change.  To me the women look emaciated.  Seeing light between their thighs is just too skinny.  The men look like shoulderless wimps trying to grow facial hair to make them look like they can actually afford the clothes they model.

And the clothes.  Even when I lived in New York and San Franscisco I never ever saw anyone in the designer garb being hyped.

After I finished up my coffee I had a doctor's appointment.  My weight and blood pressure were both down and the nurse was kind enough to tell me I didn't look my age.  Well.  That was nice.  I had told my doctor that I was consciously working on the weight but I no longer weighed myself nor took my blood pressure because I was obsessing over both and Hub was getting more than a little weary listening to me.

But there is a point to this.  I do try.  I do care about my appearence.  Is that a generational thing?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I just don't like torn jeans or tattoos or body piercings, or my body not quite squeezed into my clothes. There must be a happy medium.  I wonder, though, what the fitness industry is trying to accomplish with it's latest trend, gyms banning slim clients !

This seems to be counter indicative of incentive!  Of course in this age where everyone wants everything to be free and painless,  being made to feel uncomfortable because you're a tad hefty and your fellow exercisers may not be quite as much, is self defeating, isn't it?

I don't know.  If I were going to a gym and everyone looked like I do, I'd wonder why I was bothering.  I want to see what I might be able to achieve!  My self esteem would not be affected in a negative manner. It just might get the kick in the pants it needs.

If we cocoon ourselves with only those like us, and it's easy to do, we'll never achieve anything.  We'll begin to feel we're the norm, that we're just like everyone else.  Take a walk through a parking lot or store and you see more stouts than slims these days.

On the other hand there are the designers of those frocks in the glossy magazines.  Even though they've gotten hip to the idea many of us are larger than a size 2, the models appear the same no matter what.  And they fudge the sizes.  I have no idea what size I actually am.  It all depends on the label. But I sure don't look like the models.  Never have and never will.

I can sing though.  Being not quite thin by today's standards, I measure my accomplishments no longer by scale but by how many of the 'skinny' clothes in my closet are gradually beginning to fit again.  It gives me a huge sense of satisfaction.

So let the fit and trim into the gyms!  After all, it's how they got that way and how they maintain it and gyms may well be the last bastions of good examples. If you're going to belly up to a bar, the juice bar at the gym might be a good choice. The test will be when you can reach the juice before your belly hits the bar!