This is Part 2 of a series
Part 1: So Where Are The Thick Romance Heroines?
Part 2: Slender Is A Status Symbol
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The Ultimate Decider.
I’ve been thinking rather hard about thick v’s thin.
There’s been images of “thick” women on Facebook that caught my attention, and I posted about them, here, and wondered why we still insist on the “perfect” image of thin heroines in our books and movies.
And there’s the fact that “thin” is bloody expensive to acquire these days, which I also wrote about.
Thick vs thin is a very personal debate. Unlike smoking, it doesn’t affect anyone else but you, and the “you” we’re talking about is, alas, mostly women, who are the gender of the race that must use appearance as the primary tool to attract a mate (unlike peacocks, where it is the male that gets to preen for the female). So for the sake of this discussion, I have to bring this post back to focus on me. I can’t and won’t speak for anyone else. I suspect my thinking and my decisions are unique, just like every woman’s should be.
One of the things I noticed about the “thick” woman being spread about Facebook was that male applause was in the distinct minority. This isn’t actually a can of worms I want to open today, except to say that I noticed the lack of male approval.
I’m also a bit of a clothes horse, when I can afford it. I love to sew, and I love colours, and I love new clothes. I love and adore going to the Romantic Times Convention because it gives me the perfect excuse to dress up in outrageous dresses that I could never wear anywhere else. I also have (had) an enormous closet of shoes.
At the moment, I don’t fit into most of my great clothes, and they’re all years old, anyway, because I won’t buy new ones while I’m carrying this extra weight. Frankly, a lot of fashions look terrible on a thick body, and I feel self-conscious and uncomfortable wearing them. So I don’t.
Then there’s sex. I’m sorry, but a thick woman trying to look alluring in skimpy lingerie defies logic. There’s nothing sexy about it at all – not to me (and remember, this is purely my perspective for right now). Sexiness is far more about attitude, yes, but if you look in the mirror and what you see makes you feel ridiculous, trying to maintain your sexy mindset is a struggle.
I won’t go into too much detail about loss of flexibility, and how a thick body limits creativity and inventiveness in the bedroom. If you’re curious, try reading an old post of mine, “How to Start Looking More Sexy – Body Appearance“, which will give you some more food for thought.
All of these items are superficial. If I used them as an excuse to blow thousands of dollars of our limited household budget on a quest for a new slender me, then you would be quite right to call me selfish, vane and worse.
But there’s one winning argument why I should do this that out-ranks everything I’ve said so far: My health.
There’s overwhelming data, undeniable mountains of it, proving that older overweight women are at risk for a long list of diseases. Most of the diseases are fatal. They start at heart attacks and end with higher odds of contracting a dozen different cancers. The list of diseases in between are no picnic. By losing weight, I eliminate or diminish the odds of these diseases to close to zero.
My vanity says “take the excuse and run.” Logic says “I don’t want to die, why am I still debating this?”
So I’ve stopped debating. This is my choice. I’m voting for thin.
I’m going to motivate myself with all the vanity excuses, but I’m really doing it because I want to live. I have no idea how I’m supposed to afford it, but I’ll figure it out.
What about you?
When you figure out the secret let me know. My caloric count is well below what the nutritionist recommended and I’m eating the recommended foods. Exercise is difficult at the moment as I’m in an air cast for the foreseeable future. And the meds (that prevent weight loss and maybe even cause weight gain) are necessary to my continued life. Some of us just have to bite the bullet and live the best we can. I feel your pain.
Hi Anny:
Meds: CHeck. And mine make me gain, too. And mine are for life.
Cast: Nope.
Exercise: Check.
Because of my weight, I can’t do anything vigorous, because my aging joints can’t stand it. Walking is my top speed.
Lifting weights, however, is a whole other conversation. That I can do standing still. I suspect there’s some weight training you could do, too, Anny, and that would make the world of difference to your metabolism. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, even sitting still. It boosts your metabolism, so you can eat more. And you really need to eat more to lose weight — as counter-intuitive as that sounds. It’s what you eat that is critical. By eating next to nothing, you’re boinking your metabolism, putting it to sleep, so you’re burning next to no calories at all. That’s why you put on a pound just by sniffing a cookie.
Once you raised your metabolism, you would start to drop fat.
It’s getting the whole ball rolling that is the hardest thing in the world.
t.
Hey Tracy!
Love your perspective on things in general. It sounds like you’re really committed to your regimen. I know you’re going to fit into that strapless ball gown, 10 sizes smaller.
Your comment about health hits home though. I was just reading an article from Dr. Oz on how the rates of certain types of cancer are lower in women who exercise. We are getting older,and I can feel my joints stiffening up. I really don’t want my grandkids to have to push me about in a wheelchair.
I don’t imagine writing helps. After all, it is a sedentary occupation.
I’m trying to convince myself that exercising will save me money. As you said, it’s expensive to lose weight. So if I force myself to exercise and cut back on the junk food, I’m actually paying myself as I’m saving the Weightwatchers fees, or Dr. Bernstein Clinic fees, or Herbal Magic fees.
Sigh… gonna roll that ball tomorrow…for sure…I mean it…
Lynn
Hi Lynn:
The benefits of exercise are just too long to ignore, aren’t they? I keep tripping over them, all over the place. They believe exercise makes you happier, more intelligent, more optimistic, more fertile (not my concern anymore, but…), increases longevity at the cellular level (I’ll take that one)–not just simply by making you healthier. It’s not just about dodging the cancer bullet, stroke, heart attack, etc. And merely 30 minutes of simple walking a day, five days a week, will do it.
There is an amazing video out there — let me see if I can dig it up. Hang on… Wow, I did find it. This is an incredibly motivating video that talks about 30 minutes a day.
That’s where I’m starting out. We’re stony broke at the moment, so we bought a dead-basic treadmill with Airmiles, of all things — we had thousands of Airmiles and we can’t afford RT anymore, so we blew them on the treadmill. 🙂
It’s sitting next to my desk, and I get up 45 minutes earlier than I used to, and walk at 6km at hour for 30 minutes (5 min warm up), wearing 5lb weights on each ankle. I haven’t figured out how to squeeze weight training into my day yet, because that involves going to the gym, and I don’t have easy access to a car (Mark is always leaving on wrestling trips), so for now I’m not worrying about that too much. I’ll work on scheduling it into my day once the weight starts moving down. Weight training will also be an excellent way of blasting through a weight plateau if I hit one.
So far I’ve lost 4 pounds, in four days, but considering the rate I lost it at, that’s probably mostly water. However, if I keep doing what I’m doing, the fat will go, too.
The most interesting thing about all of this (I’m rambling for a reason) is that for the first couple of days, the thing that got me out of bed was gorgeous dresses and skinny thighs. The last couple of days the thoughts that have pulled me out from under the covers even though I really didn’t want to, were all thoughts about health, and living longer. Maybe I’m not as shallow and vane as I thought. 🙂
Cheers,
t.