My New Year’s Resolution this year was NOT to make any resolutions!   Like many other people, the ubiquitous “Lose Weight” is always at the top of my resolution list.   Every year I swear that I’m going to work out and I’m going to watch what I eat and I’m going to accomplish all kinds of miracles.

Within about two weeks, all my resolutions are broken and my feelings about myself have suffered a blow that was not necessary or needed.   This year, no resolutions, no pressure, no timelines.   When my mindset is right for dieting, I will.  Right now, it isn’t.   So, instead, I’m just going to try to be moderate for a while and try not to gain any weight.  Heck, just being moderate after the holiday indulgences turns out to be a big cut-back.  So, not to be cliché but I’m just taking baby steps.

As for exercise, one of my friends has started the Couch to 5K program.   She has an app for her Iphone and highly recommends it.   The idea is to start running 90 seconds, then walking for a while, then running 90 seconds, etc until you build up the strength to run continually.   It sounds like a great idea!   But, even 90 seconds sounds like a long time for me at this point..   Maybe I’ll try it.   I probably won’t.   I already know that I hate to run.

I have, however, bought a hula hoop.   I feel like a little kid which is actually a really fun feeling!   I put on some lively music and just hoop to my heart’s content.   It’s terrific ab exercise and I enjoy it.   Like New Year’s resolutions, I’ve decided that the key to all of this is to figure out what I enjoy and will actually do.

What about you?   What do you enjoy?   What will you do?

P.S.  I bought my hula hoop from Lindsay Follett who is known as “The Siren of the Circle.”   Her Facebook page is www.facebook.com/SirenOfTheCircle. You can watch her video below.  Next I’m going to take a class to learn how to do some of those tricks!  Right now I’m just happy to keep it up on my waist!

Johnna’s note:   In the following post, we have an alternative look at how hard we all are on ourselves no matter our size!

My good friend, Johnna, asked me to write an article for The Weight Loss Network about the fact that all my life I have been too thin.  It’s truthfully not easy for me to talk or write about.  I have struggled over this for a couple of weeks but finally I’ve decided to just tell you how it’s been for me.  My whole life I have struggled to gain weight.  I know how that must sound to those who have the opposite problem, but believe me it was no picnic!

As a young teen I was gangly, not tall, 5’3”, but thin as a rail.  I probably weighed in at about 80 lbs.  To top that off I had thick glasses and a last name that people loved to make fun of.   So needless to say, I wasn’t the most popular girl in school.   When I was 14 or so, the model, Twiggy, became really popular and I was thrilled.  Finally someone who looked like me–well at least build wise.  So for a little while it wasn’t so bad and I felt somewhat better about myself.

As I grew older, the stigma of being so thin started to weigh in (pun fully intended).  Every doctor I saw asked me if I was anorexic
and tested my thyroid, even though I told them a million times that this was just how I am!   If I had a nickel for every time…well you know.

As I got older still, people started to think I was a drug addict, a hooker, or had AIDS or cancer or something equally terrible.   I would go to the emergency room and the first thing the doctors would ask is “Do you do drugs?”   Seriously…and the funny thing is, I have never done illegal drugs in my life!  (Other than a bit of weed smoking, which I, personally, don’t think is any worse than alcohol…whole other conversation there.)

I tried protein shakes and a myriad of other gimmicks to try to put on weight, but to no avail.  The shakes took away my appetite for regular meals, so that idea went out the window since I couldn’t get proper nutrition on just shakes.

At one point a doctor gave me some pills that were supposed to be an appetite stimulant.  They were anti-depressants of some sort…didn’t increase my appetite at all and had horrible side effects!

The thing that was really worrying all my life was that if I ever got really sick my body had no reserves.  I’m happy to say that this particular worry never materialized, but it was still something that bothered me quite a lot throughout my life.

On a more personal level, my self-esteem was a bit off because I had no breasts to speak of.   I know now how silly that was, but
growing up and living with the fact that most men are very fond of larger breasts did play a role in my low self-esteem until as recently as two years ago, when I was with a man who was obsessed with large breasts.  At one point I even considered getting an enlargement, then realized how ridiculous that was.  So now, after two years of therapy, I’ve learned to like myself more and as for relationships, I am looking for someone who is happy with me the way I am.

Now from the ridiculous, to the even more ridiculous, I have finally, at 56 years old, started to put on weight– and now I find myself complaining because it’s all going to my belly, hips, and butt…so I guess the fact is that we’re never really happy with how we look! We just have to do the best we can to be healthy and try to accept ourselves the way we are.  {Johnna’s note:  Lisa has finally reached 100 pounds!}

If you eat healthy and exercise, you’ll be at your best.  It may not be perfect according to the Barbie Doll standard in this country, but you are who you are.  Don’t try to be Barbie, eat healthy, exercise and lose the weight you need to lose (or in my case, gain the weight I need to gain) but if the end result isn’t model perfect, please just realize that you are a beautiful person and you’ve done your best.

Wishing you all the luck in your quest to be healthy and fit.

Lisa D.

Johnna’s note: Body acceptance should be first and foremost for us. We need to learn how to accept and love ourselves and our lives. I would not have been able to say it as well as in the following post:

To the Girl Who Called Me a Fatass on the Bus
June 3, 2011 by dcmazzie  Reprinted with author’s permission

I know we haven’t known each other for very long – we were only on the bus for a handful of minutes – and I suppose it’s possible that my weight gain is sudden, but it’s not. I have been hauling this junk in my trunk for probably longer than you’ve been alive. And you’re not the first person (and likely not the last) to call me fat. So not only are you not as shocking as you probably hoped, you’re not terribly original, either.

Not only am I a fatass and a big fat fattie, I am well educated, I have a good job with reasonable hours that pays me well, and I am loved.
I go on vacations, I have fancy meals out with my friends, I have a nice apartment in a great building with wonderful neighbors, and a cute little dog who amuses the hell out of me. When I get sick, I can afford to see a doctor. My refrigerator and cabinets are always full. I have the tremendous privilege of free time to read, watch trashy tv, blog, navel gaze, meditate, and wonder about the meaning of life. I get manicures and pedicures whenever I want. I had a fantastic massage last week. I am surrounded by people who love me just as I am.

When I look in the mirror, at my face, I sometimes smile. I like who I am. I even like the curve of my hips and the swell of my breasts. I have managed to extract some self love from the battlefield that is my body. Like yours, my body has been under scrutiny and judgement for most of my life. We both face a constant barrage of images and expectations of what our bodies should be like. We will probably never be enough. Skinny enough, curvy enough, tall enough. We will never be just right. And if we are, or close to it, our reward all too often is harassment from strangers in the street, in the store, on the bus, where ever we have the nerve to be attractive to or noticed by someone in public. From early on, we are watching what we eat, binging and purging, counting calories, measuring inches, thinking about our “skinny jeans,” sold diets and fasts, and scrutinized for what we put in our mouths. And despite that, maybe because of that, your words did not shame me. That’s why I held your gaze for so long after you said it.

I’m not telling you this to one up you. I am telling you this because I wish the same for you. I hope that you grow up avoiding or shedding the judgement and shame that is foisted on your body and runs the risk of keeping you from living fully. I hope you find yourself in 25 years in comfort, with little struggle and lots of love. I am writing this to remind myself, too, that I am so much more than the words you slung.

I could have written the title of this post 25 years ago. The rest, I couldn’t have written until today.
http://dcmazzie.wordpress.com

Johnna’s note:  Mazzie has plenty to say about body image.   Here’s another of her very moving posts!

“No one ever asks women if we want to compete in this lifelong beauty contest. Being born female automatically makes us contestants.”

That quote is floating around the twitterverse this morning, without attribution.

I guess I never felt “in” the “contest.” When I was 13 and contemplating getting the haircut that was all the rage, I remember saying to my mom, worriedly, “There’s nothing more annoying than a fat chick with a bob.”

In junior high, I was calling myself a fat chick.

I am sure my mom’s response was some sort of horror, but what I wish she said was, “Fuck that. Fuck everyone and what they think. Be you. Be happy.” (Mom was quite delightfully conversant in vulgarities; I also remember around the same time stubbing my toe and mom standing near me saying, “Say FUCK! It will fee so much better!”) She said as much to me in many other ways since, as we both grew. But when I was 13, my parents sat me down and told me what a miserable life I would have being overweight. The message I got was as long as I was fat, no one would love me.

That summer, I did a terrible thing: I told my friend – the one who wanted to help me lose weight – I had stomach cancer. That way, I’d be forced to lose weight. Well, I didn’t. Word got around. And I went into high school as the girl who lied about having cancer.

Later, in my sophomore year of college, I was walking to a bar between two friends of mine. We could hear guys behind us talking about us, about our appearance, and one guy said to the other, “Forget the girl in the middle.” “Yeah, forget the one in the middle,” his friend affirmed. If I ever thought until that point I was “in” the “contest,” I certainly didn’t after. In fact, “forget the one in the middle” became an anthem for me. I craved being invisible.

It’s only in the last few years, as age creeps up on me and giveashits genuinely ebb, that I can do something completely radical: begin to accept myself as I am. Begin.

That doesn’t mean I don’t still internalize all the messages I am bombarded with or that I can go so far as to say I love my body. (Are any of us allowed to say that?) But at least now, as I craft my life going forward, I can carve the way to that place because I am finally, finally on my side.