what goal?

JMS asked some important questions in her comment on my last post, so I thought I’d address them here.

She asked:

I'm also curious/concerned when you say you're not done yet. What are you aiming for? You've already dropped half a size, right? Lots of women would gnash their teeth in envy to fit into a 6 but you claim you're not satisfied. What, exactly, are your personal goals? What are your criteria?

First, I don’t actually consider myself a real size six yet. I can’t fit into six waist-high jeans, for instance. I’m still a definite size eight there. And I know sizes differ in various stores, too. It was still a pleasant shock, though!

I’ve dropped a total of three or four sizes, according to the Gap jeans department. It’s kind of weird, though, because I’ve only lost 22 lbs and you’d think I’d only have lost two sizes, but these things are screwy and unpredictable.

Okay, I’m avoiding the bigger question, which is what goal I’m aiming for and implicitly if my body image will prevent me from stopping at a reasonable point. I do wonder if I’ll really see the full effect in the mirror when I get there, or if my brain will trick me into seeing fat that’s no longer there, like feeling a phantom limb. Phantom fat. But I do have some objective measures, too. Mainly, I want to have a BMI of 22 or 23. I know Weight Watchers considers anything between 20 (or is it 19?) and 25 to be healthy, but I’ve read elsewhere that 22 and below is optimum for health. And I can see it: my blood pressure has dropped from 120/80 to 120/70 already but it used to be more like 110/65 and I suspect that’s better. (Note to self: look that up, know for sure.) A BMI of 22 would put me around 122 lbs. I’m 145 lbs right now.

Also, I want to fit into my wedding dress. I looked pretty good around the time I got married (I was 29 years old, so I’m not going for a teenage body here), and definitely not too slim at 135 lbs. That’s another ten pounds down from here. I may want to lose more when I get there, I may not. I’m leaving it open. I was 125 lbs in my early 20’s and I know I wasn’t too skinny then either (though I was positively gaunt at age 18 when I was 114 lbs). So I’ll lose another ten or twenty pounds, definitely not thirty. My ultimate goal is to find a weight I can comfortably maintain the rest of my life and that allows me to enjoy my body and, yes, other people’s reactions to my body too.

I see women on TV and in real life (there are an awful lot of them in LA) who I find too skinny. Women should have curves. We should have asses and tits and arms that have some meat and muscle. We should have hips that are more than concave pelvic bones. We should have ribcages covered by a warming layer, not ribs that show through lycra tops. It’s especially unattractive to be too slim when you hit 40 and beyond: your neck starts to look all tendony and odd and your face shows age faster and more completely. We’re not meant to be muscle and bone, we’re meant to have flesh too. I’m not heading toward the anorexic, heroin-chic look, never fear. Will I be able to see myself objectively enough to know when to stop? I think so, though I can’t know for sure. I look at myself now and I see someone who looks a hell of a lot better than when I started in July, but who still has a bit too much padding here and there and, well, just about everywhere. If I stopped now, besides not being at my ideal BMI, I’d be annoyed with my mirror. And I want to love my mirror. And yes, I’m allowing for whatever bumps and lumps inevitably remain on my not-surgically-altered lived-in body. I look at pictures of me at my wedding and my body isn’t so well toned (I’m in better shape now) but my face looks perfect to my eyes.

And I have a fail-safe in case I get carried away: If I can’t tell when it’s time to stop, I suspect Dan will tell me. He, too, dislikes ultra-skinny women.

It’s an interesting and difficult question, when to stop losing weight. I don’t know the final answer for myself. I only know I’m not there yet.

Posted by Tamar at November 7, 2003 02:21 PM