I love the movie Freaky Friday. It’s so fabulous! My favorite scene in the movie is when Jamie Lee Curtis is driving in a car with her daughter. Due to a freak of nature, the mother is now the daughter and the daughter is the mother. Jamie Lee Curtis is in the car and she is now a teenager. There are a few things that make me laugh. First, her daughter is now the mother and IS DRIVING. That would freak me out. The really fun part of the scene is watching Jamie Lee Curtis process the fact that she has morphed back into a teenager. There are certainly some aspects of this change that might frighten some adults but she has an epiphany, an awakening and cries “I can eat french fries. Do you know how long it has been since I ate french fries?” I love this line. I didn’t use to get it but now….I totally get it!
For close to 37 years, I have been a slave to the scale. I am embarrassed. When I was 16 years old, I felt I had to change. Are you kidding me? What does a sixteen year old have to change? I only WISH I had the problems now that I now “think” I have. Weighing in under 115 pounds and feeling a little “pudgy”. What a dream! Flat stomach? No stretch marks and being able to eat french fries? Heaven!
I have wasted my time looking at a scale and allowing a number to define me. How did this happen? Honest to goodness, 16 years old and worried? If I could be Jamie Lee Curtis and trade places with my teenager, I would in a heartbeat and let me tell you….there would be no scale in sight but there would be fries! I would practice absolute joy and acceptance. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have embarked on a life of sport and fitness but I would engage for the love of the feeling rather than a warped sense of success depending on where the dial on the scale fell.
I hit 50 and everything shifted. My scale says that I am heavier than I have ever been. My personal trainer has said that my abdominal fat is bordering something terrible and I need to eat cottage cheese. Really? This is my life? Fighting fat and eating cottage cheese? If age brings wisdom, I have decided that I am now smart enough to break up with my scale and not live off cottage cheese.
My personal trainer also suggested I give up red wine. I gave up the trainer. Yes, my midlife middle is a little wiggly and jiggly and it doesn’t always feel so fab BUT I can still fit into a little black dress (OK…with the help of control top nylons) but I can wear a bright pink lipstick and still sport a smile that lights up a room. My inner radiance has nothing to do with the numbers. I am me. And some days, I like “me” better than other days. Sort of like my husband. There are also days when my inner chitter chatter could be the makings of a “mean girl” series. I am awful the way I talk about myself inside my head. And I don’t think I am alone.
Some people might say, “yes, but you are only carrying XXX amount of weight and look great. I am XXXX”. I call this the “comparison dialogue”. The Mean Girl in me doesn’t care if I am just XXX. She just keeps yelling at me and telling me how much of a failure I am. I look at what I “was” versus what I “am” and I allow that mean girl to make me feel bad; really bad.
If I am smart enough to break up with my scale, not accept cottage cheese as a way of life, surely I can be smart enough to start a new dialogue in my head and get rid of Mean Girl
. As of January 1st, my goal is to to be best “me” that I can be. Tomorrow, I might be better OR I might have cookies for breakfast…..
All these years I have tortured myself with a terrible conversation about weight and image. What a waste. The same conversation I had when I weighed 115 pounds is the one that I was having when I was tipping near 140 pounds. It’s not worth it. I am breaking up with my scale, starting a new relationship with myself and saying “YES” more than I say no when it comes to living.
I want to run because I enjoy it. I want to exercise because it makes me happy and I want to embrace all my perceived imperfections as a part of me, not something to abolish. Yes, we all have a “size” where we feel good. Let me tell you, I did not feel good running when my belly was hitting my boobs. Not so fab. I feel good when I adjust my eating, exercise regularly and STOP with the berating comments. I say women need to better than this. I would suggest that we need to open up the dialogue and start talking to the next generation of women and say ENJOY WHO YOU ARE! Age happens and let’s not waste ourselves with a relationship with a scale. We rise, we fall, we bloat, we shrink but let’s not judge. I know. Not easy, did I mention my “Mean Girls” series going on in my head? Baby steps are courage in action.
This is what I will tell my daughter. I will continue to tell her that she is beautiful, that she is strong and that life is a journey with many destinations but she should NOT let the conductor of her train be the scale.
We need to change the conversation. I mean really….you walk into a store and they have created a size 0 for pants? How can this be real? What is a zero? Is that a test mark? It can’t be a size because we are more than nothing which is what 0 is.
So. This is the “jump” I am taking now. I am leaping into self-acceptance and committing to loving what I do. I will no longer do burpees. I hate burpees. I even hate the word “burpees”. Who came up with that name? They do not make me happy and I won’t do them. I will do boot camp and I will train for a half marathon and enjoy walks along the river with my dog and I will most definitely continue to enjoy my red wine. Balance. What a gorgeous word. I want to feel more of that and as I move to a greater sense of happiness, I don’t want the numbers to be my sign of success. I want ME to be a sense of personal accomplishment. Let’s open up the conversation. Let’s empower women to love every moment of their life. I wouldn’t want one more woman to spend time worry about a scale. What nonsense and yet, I did that.
I have broken up with my scale. We are officially “over”. I don’t want to be who I was, I want to like who I am.
PS. Photo is me. Face is strained as I get ready to “jump” to a new inner dialogue. Breaking up is hard to do…… bring on 2020!
And Then I Jumped...... 