Buck 99!

I took so long to write this post that it is out of date already! I typed the title last night, two days after seeing that lovely slender single 1 at the front of my weight. 199.5. W-O-W. I cannot remember the last time I weighed less than 200 pounds. 8th grade? Maybe?

My gym teacher that year tried so hard. They all did. Mrs. Gorman, starting in 3rd grade, Mr. Cormier in middle school, looking for ways to get me and the 2 or 3 others like me active, feeling strong. We were pulled out of class for situp races, attempts to do pull ups.

The worst day of the year was Presidential Fitness Day.

Normally, I could distract people (or so I believed) with my wit, intelligence and eagerness to please. But one day a year, all my failings were on display. How many pull-ups can you do? 0. If none, how long can you hang? 3 seconds. How long does it take you to run a mile? Run? I can't even walk a mile. Every year I developed excruciating leg cramps and couldn't either start or finish. Mr. Cormier gave me disbelieving looks, as I would have in his place, but the crazy thing is that I really did have debilitating leg cramps all through those years. I'd cramp the night before and barely be able to walk the next day. Tightly wound much?

Only now has physical activity reached over the cold war divide and tried to become my friend. I feel a bit like I am Reagan, however, and instead of being nice, affable Gorbachev, exercise is more like Breshnev or Putin. Luring me in.

"I wish someone had told me; I said to Jack the other morning after a half-hour on my treadmill, "Everyone always talks about how good exercise is for you, blah blah blah, great skin, toning, heart capacity, etc. But no one ever told me it was good for my mental health. That it kicks out all the anxiety and flushes the knots from my system. I wish I had known!"

Of course, no one I knew exercised. While in college I spent Thanksgiving with a new friend's family. After eating we went for a leisurely hike in the woods around their home. A revelation! Immediately I tried implementing this wonderful new habit in my family. Ha! We are of the sit and smoke ilk, not the trekking with sticks folk.

Somehow here I am, in this place where I have less than 50 pounds to lose. My BMI calculator still lists me as obese, as does the giant impression my butt makes on the edge of the bed, but living people tell me how skinny I am. In aerobics yesterday (how weird to say that), I looked in the mirror and saw chicken legs! To satisfy my BMI, I have 39.5 pounds to go. I'd like to lose 48. Being 150 pounds has been such an impossible dream my whole life. That, and wearing a size 10.

The transition from girl's clothes to women's clothes was one of those moments in life when you didn't see the Mack truck coming. I expected that although I had outgrown all the girl's things I would begin again as tiny in the women's things. That you went from 16 in girls to 2 in women's. Made sense to me. But no, the first pair of shorts I got as a 10 year old were size 12. I was devastated. There was no hiding place for me down there. I was big, even for a woman.

And here I am, closing in on those days again. But this time from a different place, a different state of mind. I am peeling layers, revealing my strength and connecting to my source, to my inner power. It is emotional and scary, but I have been inducted into the trekking with sticks clan and am hoping the specter of physical activity slowly fades from Breshnev into Mr. Rogers. Won't you be my neighbor, exercise?

CURRENT WEIGHT: 198.5