Diet or Die-It
Spring is bringing out all the ideas for weight loss. The talking heads are in agreement that we should all be thin as rails and to get that way we should spend our money on their newest ways to make our shadows look like sticks. But! Yes, a nice round fluffy “but.” Just for a moment let’s look at that word diet. I cannot be the only person that looks at a diet as a way to “die at it.” For that reason I might be the biggest person in the picture. I will also be the one with the biggest smile.
As the days to summer start to countdown there is a push to not only get that pre summer spray on tan, but to get into things that somehow shrank while sitting in the back of the closet all winter. So out come all the ways to drop a few extra bits of our fluffiness.
There is a new vibrating machine that you stand on, and it promises to work all your muscles into shape. Just stand on it. It reminds me of the 1950’s machine that had a six-inch-wide belt that you put around your back side and the ends attached to the machine that then rotated really fast sending belt ends up and down. Thus, wiggling the wearer’s body and supposedly shaping them into a size zero! Oh, the possibilities were endless—but not the life of the Vibrating Belt Machine.
The newest fad this year may just be the “shot.” Seems there is a push to get a shot once a week of magic serum that will kick your metabolism into gear and poof, the skinny jeans will fit. Oh, it’s all the rage. Just ask any of the AI produced commercials with all sorts of already too skinny celebs.
I feel that at my age and physical appearance I am as near an expert on the body and its manifestation of growth and reduction. Oh I have tried more than my fair share of new and best and 100% guaranteed ways to get the buttons on that shirt from last year to close and lay flat. Looking back this is what I have learned.
If your family genes have given you larger jeans, it’s really okay. Unless of course it affects your health. The best thing I have heard from a doctor was that it takes more out of your body to lose and gain and lose and gain the same ten, twenty or more pounds over your life. She told me to just be who I was meant to be. That our genetics, the parts that make us all who we are—from all those who came before us. Our genetics make us who we are. I finally found out that being myself wasn’t as hard on my inside parts, like my heart and stuff, that it was to yo-yo diet. See! I knew it. There was truth to a diet becoming a die-it. I have yo-yoed over the years, until my string broke!
Now I don’t mean to say we shouldn’t eat right. I grew up with the food pyramid just like a zillion others did. I know that three cookies are enough. We all know that vegetables are good for us. I laugh when I see the little old guy on a TV commercial who says, “French fries are vegetables.” A truer sentence has never been uttered.
Diets become harder with age. Being heavy is nearly always the first thing thought of when shopping, vacationing, visiting, just pretty much doing life. I have a friend that has always been a size zero or, Heaven forbid, she goes up to a one! So she is in the same basket with me. It isn’t about size, it’s about perception. We both perceive that if the number on the scale goes up, we want to scream with agony, but if it goes down, we still want to scream with delight. Maybe we should just quit screaming. Just sayin’.
In my thirties I lost the most weight I have ever lost. Some 67 pounds. Was it worth it? Maybe for about a minute. Then I realized I wasn’t really any happier. Funny how that happens. But it does. All of a sudden, it was more important to maintain than to have fun in life. That’s no way to live.
In the decades of our forties and fifties weight comes with extra baggage. Menopause and oh, so many other girly things. We still strive, but the tides of time will win.
Be happy and healthy in your skin.
Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka Nevada. Contact her at itybytrina@yahoo.com or Trina Machacek HC 62 Box 62101 Eureka, Nevada 89316
