(more on that later)

So here's the "more" from my first entry. Have trouble remembering that exact quote? Lemme refresh your memory... 


Here I was, in my troubled 20's, a lonely young lady trying to unravel her confusing and traumatic teenage years using food to protect and comfort. I wasn't thinking 'Dang.. if I stretch out all my skin now, it'll look like a fried egg on a hook when I'm 40!' I had no foresight. No sense of responsibility to my older self. Which now, come to think of it, my older self would love to go back and smack my younger self for NOT thinking about (more on that later).


I will tell the commoner that the way I'm gauging my weight is by the scale. But really, that's a lie. I only use the scale as a way for rewarding my very significant effort. It takes a lot to get my lazy ass away from facebook on a morning free from children, and trade in my prized "me time" (read as: the only time I have when the kids aren't arguing about which episode of Phineas and Ferb they'd rather watch) to go to the gym and sweat like a hog (more on that later, part II. that's a hint, people). But numbers on the scale, as frustrating as they are, are only a means to an end. They get me STUFF. I lose ten pounds, I get X-number of dollars to spend on REAL athletic clothing so I can show up to the gym wearing something other than worn out Old Navy t-shirts from last summer. 15 pounds lost and I get a snazzy new hair cut. Quite frankly, who wouldn't want to see me wearing a fashionable coif ala Alison Mosshart. Google that. My new less-15 lbs-of-flab bad ass muscles meet bad ass hair cut. That'll drive the hoity-toity elementary school mommies whose upper thighs don't touch even though they've had 3 or 4 children nuts. They won't know what the hell to think of me!  20 pounds lost and I am rewarding myself with professional head shots. And who knows what after that? I think 20 pounds lost is a pretty big goal at this point. But the possibilities are endless! As... are... the amount of lbs I have to lose to be suitable to the judgmental whore my doctor calls "BMI".


But do I judge how my body is changing by numbers on the scale or inches on a measuring tape? Hell no. I'm too smart to fall for that kind of lunacy. I judge the amount of weight lost by the density of flab that hangs over my emergency c-section incision. And if you think THAT is a bothersome idea, you should have been there at the hospital when I earned said scar and nearly died on the table thanks to a certain incompetent anesthesiologist. Believe me when I say that we all have ideas of the things that "truly" gross us out, but once you've gone through feeling your entire abdomen spliced open on an OR table, nothing grosses you out so much any more. Not baby poop. Not your kid throwing up an exorbitant amount of Oreo's that he ate without asking and, between you and me, deserved to throw up. These kinds of traumatic instances make cleaning up yellow dog barf out of pristine white carpet seem like a cake walk. Which is why, every day, when I step in the shower, I use my precise, caliper-like fingertips, to feel how loose the skin fold is that flops over that miserable scar. Please take a moment here to throw up in your mouth a little, but continue reading... I'm done grossing you out.


The fact that I'm over 40 (just by a little bit) means a few things, factually: my skin has lost elasticity. I will never have washboard ab's... well, that anyone can SEE, anyway... without surgery to nip and tuck. I will never have arms that don't flap under my tricep when I wave goodbye to my kids on the bus. I will never have knees that don't resemble an elephant. And I'm ok with that. It's a small price to pay, and to be honest with you, it'll probably seem more like a victory flag all over my body. I may have to wear Spanx for the rest of my life, but at least there will be the grand illusion to the general public that I wasn't, at one (very long) point, a fatty. Being over 40 also factually means that when I lose weight, wrinkles will appear on my face that I had no idea existed. Wrinkles that no amount of New Youth Code by L'Oreal can smooth over. And I'm learning to... y'know... except that.... kinda. Those "It's already 7am?" morning-squint wrinkles between my eyebrows don't vanish as quickly but... but... there has to be a positive spin I can put on that..? Right? Maybe. Y'know. Some day? Ok. Enough fooling myself. The face wrinkle part sucks ass. 


Ok, ok... going back to my original point: the true gauge of weight loss is in fat density, which no moron can argue with. Here's my simple formula (and you don't have to add/subtract/multiply/divide anything, so math haters: rejoice!) #1. Find the flabbiest part of your body. #2. Feel it. #3. Judge how pliable it is. #4. After you've been working out 6 days a week, eating less,  drinking more water and the scale starts to budge; feel it again. Is it softer? Congratulations! You lost weight! Is it heavier? Oh, too bad: 30 more minutes on the elliptical for you! See? Piece of cake. No scale. No measuring tape. No calipers. No smoke. No mirrors. Easy-peasy lemon... errrrr... fatty-squeezey!


My well educated and highly trained* method will work for everyone, you know how I know? BECAUSE EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD EVALUATES HERSELF IN THE SHOWER EVERY SINGLE DAY. Deny it. I dare you. Even women whose upper thighs don't touch after having 3 or 4 children (which to me means they are half-alien anyway) slips their hands down the sides of their non-human size 0 waist to measure for lump of fat content. It's true! I say again, I say: Deny it. I dare you. YOU LIE!!


So there's the honest "more" in the "more on that later"! The true measurement of my measurements: the feeling of density. Not in how a certain pair of pants that shrinks around just the waistband when it's washed but manages to stretch out and sag everywhere else fits you (thank you Old Navy)! Not in how many inches lost! Not in the total embarrassment of having a personal trainer walk you into a private fitting room to caliper your fat so as not to let the skinny woman who likes to parade around the locker room in the buff see that you're never going to be as thin as her no matter what you do outside of massive plastic surgery! NO! It's because... and let's put it all out here on the (non-OR, because that experience still gives me nightmares) table... it's because once you reach 40 you lose elasticity in your skin; and that skin ain't gonna' stop sagging! This means the measuring tape won't ever stop measuring. The scale will never "reduce weight" based on wrinkly bunches of skin under your incredibly ripped tricep! The only real gauge is to know your own body and to feel the progress over a 1/8" scar!!!  YES! Because these are the types of trials every woman who wants to slap her younger self for being a self-fish dumb-ass goes through!!!!


And because.... even though I say okay with Spanx... I'm really not.
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*I am neither highly educated nor well trained in anything at all related to gauging weight loss