Weight Management
It started a long time ago when I was just a teenager. I was spending hours every day in dance classes dressed in only a leotard and tights and watching my weight as if my life depended on it. Add to that the fact that I was standing in a room chocked full of skinny teenage girls also clad in nothing more than leotards and tights. That’s some pressure. I took note of every last calorie I consumed. I was convinced that if I gained so much as a fraction of an ounce it would be noticeable. I thought that a 1 pound weight gain would be catastrophic, or heaven forbid, a 3 or 4 pound weight gain - at which point everyone would notice, and I might as well pack it in and go home. And what was the result of all of this nonsense? My sophomore year of college and my baby-making years notwithstanding, my body weight has not fluctuated more than about 5 pounds my entire adult life.
There is one additional reason for my determination not to let things get out of control. It’s this. If I start overeating, every single solitary milligram of added fat heads right for the same exact area. We ladies know what that area is, don’t we? You men have a slightly different area of concern, but it’s the same idea. If I were to experience a significant weight gain, my arms, legs, neck, and face would remain exactly the same, but that one problem zone would expand with frightening speed.
I just don’t understand the biology of this phenomenon. Why must all of the fat be inexorably drawn to one place? What would be wrong with the fat depositing itself in a nice even layer over the entire body? I don’t see why this would be a problem, but the human body chooses to do otherwise. Sometimes I think that when I load up on junk food and sweets, none of that stuff even bothers with my digestive system. I believe it bypasses all of that. I think it just heads straight for its target zone and parks itself right there, and as we all know, that parking lot never fills up. There’s always room for more.
Given my lifetime of frustration with this issue, it may not surprise you to know that about a year ago I stopped caring. It’s true. A doctor told me that I needed to add more fats to my diet, and I decided to do just that. It hasn’t quite opened the floodgates, but they’re definitely ajar. If I want to go out and get an ice cream cone or a burger or a doughnut, I just do it. I’ve only put on a couple of pounds so maybe I should have done this a long time ago. I ought to mention that the doctor didn’t say anything about adding sugar. I did that on my own. It’s given me a whole new outlook on life.