What ecstatic fun you can have examining the myriad myths of a misspent youth!
While I was in the shower this morning (because you needing the setting), I had an epiphany (because epiphanies and hot water seem to go hand in hand). Here's what I remembered: I used to think that "thin" had a weight limit and that was 110 pounds (roughly 50 kg)...
HUH?!? No wonder I had weight/body image issues! I have no idea where that number actually came from, but there it was as if from one of Moses' stone tablets.
Okay, well, that might be exactly what thin looks like for some folks (and my sincere blessings to you if you are in that category), but at 5'10" tall, that wouldn't have been "thin" for me. That would have been skeletal.
Luckily for me, I spent most of my excessively athletic high school years between 135-145. No, I didn't realize then how thin I actually was, but I have a great appreciation for that fact now. During college, I padded out a little, but still stayed between 145-160. Well within healthy norms for my height and build. I happen to have dense muscle mass (or so my chiropractor insists), so the scale weight for me of say, 140, equates to a size 5/6.
Right now, late-30's and post-babies, I'm aiming for a comfortable size 7/8, whatever that happens to look like on the scale. That's a drop of only about 3 sizes, nothing requiring surgery or hyper-restrictive dieting, but still a challenge on every face of it. I've been doing a yoga-pilates class several nights a week for about 2 months and I can tell a difference, but it doesn't seem to be quite "enough". Yes, there's that word, but I'm not applying it to myself in this case but rather my choice of physical activity.
So I joined a walking team at work. It's the first time they've done this so I don't know many of the details but I got my pedometer this morning and it's almost insanely fun to see how my regular walking adds up. Our manufacturing facility is quite large and though I don't often venture into the vast recesses, I do at least make the trek to/from my vehicle in addition to walking up and down a large flight of stairs several times each day. The pedometer measures to the thousandths of a mile so every step (or five) adds to the total.
As I've delved deeper into exposing myths (like "my ideal weight *should* be 110 lbs."), I've built healthier, more realistic concepts to take their place. Yoga, walking - maybe even running if I can beat the insane summer heat - these help me construct that framework that will sustain me through the rest of my years (which I plan to be numerous).
What personal myths have you excavated from your childhood/youth?
Happy Thanksgiving
3 weeks ago
3 comments:
I must be good for God (or anyone else) to love me.
Yup, threw that one out a while ago. Glad to hear you're dealing with yours. Funny how those obvious lies get so entrenched we don't even think about them logically.
Oh, that's a GOOD one... if you'll pardon the play on words. ;)
It is amazing how looking at myths like these head on DOES make them seem so obviously incongruous with the reality we're presented with on a daily basis.
I hope to give my sons some sense of being able to sniff these things out for themselves long before I did. Moreover, I hope to help them not develop potentially harmful myths in the first place. I don't know HOW I expect to achieve that, but there you are.
Good for you for blowing the lid off of the 110lb myth. I don't think I've been 110lbs since I was about 12 years old... if even then. :)
Lately I've been working through my own preconception that I need to blog 5x per week to amount to any sort of "good" writer... Haha. A few months of barely scraping out 1 post have put that into perspective!
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