The Backside of My Backside
For almost a week, I’ve been writing posts about weight loss. It’s a topic that is fraught with opinions.
Wow……can anyone say middle-aged?
Pushing back from the feed trough once in a while *might* be a good idea.
We’ve all done it, at one time or another. Looked at a picture online or in a magazine and been outraged at a celebrity that was something other than perfection. Perhaps we expect a lot of others to fill the simmering, unseen void where we ourselves fall short.
I’m pleased with how I look now, but I wasn’t unhappy with how I looked before. The inside is what counts. My blood pressure is lower. Ditto cholesterol. The heart-attack inducing fat around my middle is gone. Shrunken.
Whatever.
There’s less of me to love, but I hope that means I will live longer. Be nicer. Do something good for someone, somewhere. Use that mileage to make a difference in the world. In the end, I don’t want people to remember me for how I looked.
I want them to remember me for how I lived.
This post is part of the series Don’t Mess With the Dress. If this is your first visit to the series, please click here to go back to the beginning, go here for the second installment, click here for the third installment, go here for the fourth installment, click here for the fifth installment and go here for the sixth installment.
I think you said it well when you said you weren’t unhappy with how you looked before. My weight fluctuates a bit more than I would like it to…and that’s partially the problem. I’m not unhappy! But I do recognize that added weight can be a health problem, and as I’m getting older the weight doesn’t come off as easily, and the consequences are sometimes more significant. Your newfound success and the discipline that brought you here, is just great. Very inspirational, Andra!
It is hard to constantly pay attention and make adjustments. For so much of my life, I ate whatever I wanted without any real consequences. You do such a good job with your eating. I told MTM about your eggplant recipe the other day. We got another one in our CSA bag this week.
Makes sense to me:)
Maybe I’ll grow up yet.
Your best comment yet….”I want them to remember me for how I lived.”
Here’s hoping they’re all good memories in the end.
Very inspiring.
Thanks, Heather.
I always thought you looked great. And still do. And more so!
Are you still walking the bridge regularly? I always thought that was so cool – and especially now that you live closer to it.
Congratulations!
We did get out there last night and walk it. We’ve been gone so much of late. It’s hard to get into the routine.
Well said Andra! Like +
You know I always love those Google+ references.
I wish I could say I was happy with the way I look. I wish it didn’t matter to ME. While I work to change it I’m never happy with the outcome, but I’m working on it…I’m working on the inside, on accepting. Man, it’s probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Acceptance…that’s what I’d like to have.
Your smile brightens a dreary day and yesterday’s picture really curved the edges of my mouth.
You will get there, Lori. I know it.
Now that inspires.
Foxy and wise. Unbeatable!
I hope that will apply to my current book when it’s done.
I have total faith.
Well done, Andra. Well done. (I thought this was a fun series, and applaud you for not only your efforts in weight loss, but you wit and sense of humor.)
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Penny. It was fun to write.
Yeah. I’m currently on a weight loss quest (I weigh 190.5 and it’s heading slowly down; the baby is five, it’s no longer baby weight), but I do so at the cost of constant internal war. I’d rather be fat that cash in on the health crazy that’s really sweeping the nation. I read an article entitled something like “physically fit” is the new “skinny” that basically suggested that people often pretend to be getting fit when they’re really just keeping up with the Kardashians. (and I’m not suggesting that you are among those who do – more that the whole thing annoys me and I hate having to do it myself.)
Losing weight is so, so hard. And, I think there’s a big difference between following the crazy and doing what’s best to try to be as healthy as we can.
By Hollywood or model standards, I am still overweight. And, I don’t care.
Word.
“I don’t want people to remember me for how I looked.
I want them to remember me for how I lived.”
I shall write that one dow and store it away somewhere….
I need to read it every day.
Bravo, Andra!
Accepting ourselves as and where we are . . . gives us the motivation to keep growing, and changing, and evolving into being the best we can be!
May it continue to be so for me, Nancy.
The day’s nearly done, but I just wanted to add, that the weight loss thing should ONLY be personal; for one’s own well-being, and never for the purpose of pleasing others, or trying to measure up to some nebulous “standard.”
Accepting ourselves as we are is a wonderful thing, but blind acceptance can slip into carelessness, too. I made excuses for a long time as the weight silently sneaked up and attached itself to my backside; and to my frontside; and to all points in between. Carrying around that much extra changes who we can “be” because it creates limitations on what we can do. Losing extra pounds benefited my knees (the statistic I heard this week is that every extra pound of weight puts an extra 4 pounds of pressure on the knee); BP seems to be better managed; jeans are two sizes smaller, and, I don’t find myself out of breath after minimal exertion.
This series was fun to read, but it’s also the kind of thing I would print and save for my growing daughters to read (if I had growing daughters, that is), along with all of the comments, ’cause image is about so very much more than just outward appearances.
Thanks for summing this up so eloquently, Karen. I am glad you and Kim embarked on your journey and saw it through. You look so great in the pictures I see, and I know you feel better.
Catching up on old posts… Nice thoughts on this one, Andra.
‘You done good’, as they say, I saw the pic of ‘skinny minnie’ in the pumpkin socks.