Under My Skin

The two year anniversary of my seventy pound weight loss has just passed.

The food madness that has plagued me since puberty continues to be my undoing. I drink staggering quantities of soda. I eat chocolate every day. And, whatever any health guru would have you believe, my control over the amount of food I ingest is as tenuous today as it ever was.

But the pounds have stayed away. So I celebrated! How else? With a trip to the doc for an annual physical. Good. Times.

"Dr. Z," I said, preparing to ask the question I've been too-scared to ask in the past 24 months, "I'm stuck. I got rid of 70 of the excess pounds I was carting around, but I can't seem to shake the last 8."

She gave me her less-than-comforting-bedside-manner up-and-down look. There was a pinch test. There was another look -- rueful. Humoring? Annoyed? "Well. This could be the problem: You're trying to lose your skin."

Twenty years of overweight, obesity, and pregnancy have left me wobbling. And wobbly I shall remain without the aid of vanity-enhancing, pocket book-shrinking cosmetic surgeries because there's no more weight to lose. Just skin.

It's time to come to terms with the numbers as they are; on the scale, on the measuring tape. It's time to acknowledge that I won't be getting that nose piercing I've wanted re-done (it was the reward for a seventy-six pound loss).

A surprising sort of calm has come with this new understanding. I've done the work (and will continue to do the work, of course). Now it's time to focus on other things (We heard a preacher suggest that our souls are very fat: we spend too much time thinking about ourselves, our weakness, our strength, our this, our that. We've become obese in our self-awareness. I wonder what a seventy pound loss looks like there?). It's time to be. To rest more. To strive less in this respect.

I'm guessing this will be easier said than done! But it's a good time of year for new goals and hopeful objectives. I'm excited to turn my focus outward again ~ away from me and onto others. Broader, more productive, more generous pursuits ahead.

Wobbly bits and all!