Vanity Pounds --Written on: Monday, Mar. 15, 2004 ~~ 10:45
Yesterday I decided to jump on the bandwagon of fitness trends... I bought a Pilates workout DVD. Several months ago, I lavished praise upon Tony Little's Gazelle Freestyle Elite exercising machine. That thing got me through last summer and then collected some dust while I was taking classes in the fall. Not quite a month ago, I started back up with it, but it's just not the same. Instead of feeling invigorated and energized and like I'm making progress, I just feel like I've sweated 22 minutes out of my life three times a week. Of course, I'll continue with it... We bought the damn thing only a year ago and I'm all about getting my money's worth but I need something new to hold my attention span for physical activity.I guess that's the problem with having a nice, healthy metabolism as a child. Good metabolism, bad lifestyle. Exercise and a healthy diet? Bah! Who needs it? Yeah, well... Like most people, it isn't destined to last forever for me. And I did my fair share of screwing up my metabolism with starvation diets and quasi-anorexic behavior as a teenager. Now, my body's stable weight seems to want to be somewhere between 135 and 145... Not pleasing to someone who thought 115 was high for most of their teenage years. So we'll try Pilates. Everyone who does it seems to love it, that I've known at least. Can't be any worse than sitting on one's duff.
So... 115 to 145 in the space of what... 6 years, I guess? Back and forth and up and down in the meantime. I've been down to 100 and let me tell you, that's just not healthy either. Too small, not healthy, no fun. So my question is, I guess, that we have an issue of 30 pounds there. Is that enough to not just be "vanity pounds?" Okay, technically I wouldn't really want to be 115 again anyway--still too small. 120-125 seems like a good place. As far as I'm concerned "vanity pounds" are a bunch of crap. Maybe to people who have never exceeded 130 and have never had a family member exceed 130 to where they really don't ever have anything to worry about... Maybe those are people who have "vanity pounds" but really, how many of those people are there anyway? What about someone who needs to lose a great deal of weight? Let's say that their goal is to lose 100 pounds. Well if they lose 90 or 95, isn't that good enough? Aren't those last 5-10 lbs. just "vanity pounds?" As I said, no such thing (for most normal people).
Me, maybe I'm not hugely overweight or unhealthy... Yet. However, family history dictates that if I don't keep an eye on my "vanity pounds" now and keep them under control, I will be... No question. Forget even having kids, though that will be the quickest way to turn my "vanity pounds" into unhealthy body fat, at the rate I'm going and assuming the rate that the metabolism slows with age, I'm going to have a real problem by the time I'm middle-aged. All if I don't manage my "vanity pounds."
I hate that phrase.
Au revoir.
Before And After
Would I get a discount if I birthed the baby in the store? - 5/16/05
The end is near? - 5/13/05
The progession of me - 5/10/05
Cleaning update - 5/7/05
Pre-nesting - 5/7/05
