I’m both frustrated and elated this morning.  Frustrated because the number on the scale hasn’t moved in a few days.  Elated because my jeans have room in the waist, thighs and rear.  My number may not be decreasing, but my size is.

I’ve always said that I could weigh 300 pounds, as long as I’m a size 6 or 8, I don’t care.  I have a confession.  That is a lie.  100% untrue.  Blatant falsehood.  I’m surprised I haven’t been stuck dead when I’ve said it.  I want to be able to cheerfully chirp “120, fiddle-dee-dee” while batting my eyelashes and fanning myself when someone asks me what I weigh.  The truth is that I probably wouldn’t weight 120 pounds if I were mummified.

I love to swim. I learned when I was two and have been a fish pretty much ever since.  The thing about swimming is this: fat floats.  At my largest, I floated some 3 cm above the water.  At 15 pounds over my goal weight, I went swimming for the first time in years.  I got in the water and did what I always did – went under and pushed off the side.  When I rose to the top, I began to do the front crawl.  The problem was that I didn’t rise to the top.  I stayed level.  Underwater.  Well, that was new.  At that time, I weighed 160 pounds….hardly petite.

I have to face facts – my body is not built to have a healthy weight of 120.  At 140, I was actually a little too thin.  Regardless of what the BMI says (and I’m told that people who really know don’t use that anymore), my body is best at 145 to 150.  I have a medium bone structure with athletic musculature, if not grace, talent or coordination. I know that I can no more change that than I can change the color of the sky, still, a part of me is wistful.

My jeans are looser and I’ll be back in my cute clothes within a month or so.  I can’t let the bathroom tyrant ruin my day, my thinking or my behavior.  Remind me of that later, will you?