Two months ago I gave blood. In New Zealand you don’t get money for it, no accolades, no merit badge, it’s just something you know you should do. As I sat in the closet-sized office for my two minute review the nurse went over the questions on the sheet of paper before her. Any tattoos recently? I wish. No piercings. No exotic travel. No medication. No sex with gay men. etc. Am I over 50kg? I raised an eyebrow at her.
Lady, look at me. I could eat a 50kg person for breakfast.
All the right boxes were checked. I jumped on the scales, she recorded my weight and off I went to share some of the ol’ O+ with the world.
It was the first time I’d seen how much I weighed in at least six months. My initial reactions was: That’s less than I thought, go team!
But as I sat in the chair, blood draining from my arm, it occurred to me that despite how relieved I was that the figure wasn’t that bad – it could be a hell of a lot better. It should be better. It will be better.
I wasn’t planning to blog about anything weight-loss related but this morning as I stood in front of the mirror, prodding and pinching at any fat I could find (as I do every day) it re-dawned on me that I will never be skinny. Or at least, what I define skinny to be. I can probably slim down to conventionally thin, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I like bones, I think they’re far more attractive than curves and given half a chance I would opt to look like a ruler.
However, I am not designed to look that way. It’s the sad and simple truth.
One day (five years ago, so I’m paraphrasing but bear with me) Nik and I were lying down in bed. I announced that maybe if I stopped eating I’d be able to look like Audrey Hepburn. He rolled over from his back to his side, looked at me, squinted a little and rolled on to his back again. “You realise,” he said after a while “that we’re basically the same height and your rib cage is like twice the size of mine.” I looked down at myself and then over to him. He was right.
I have the skeletal frame of She-Hulk.
No amount of dieting and exercise is going to make me look like Audrey. My dreams had been hulk-smashed.
For now, I have reluctantly accepted my fate… to an extent, maybe I’ll invest in a rib-crushing corset. In the future you may look forward to: my thoughts on genetic influence, musings (raging) at BMI scales, successes, failures, and anything else I can think of.
October 26, 2010 at 12:41 |
Woah. You’re one of THOSE people who like the bony look? I can’t really understand it, but I guess everyone has their own tastes.