More Body Image

I hate to spend so much time worrying or even wondering about what I look like but I know that really grasping the difference between me fat and me thin will help me to keep this weight off. So what do I know now?

• I know how much I weigh and I know how tall I am.   The BMI chart tells me I’m at the high end of a healthy weight.

• I know my bust, waist and hip measurements.  The handy-dandy red, yellow and white tape provided by the National Health service tells me that I’m in the “at risk” category and need to reduce my waist size by at least an inch and a half.

• I know that I’m an inverted triangle with a tendency to put on weight on my torso.  When overweight, I look like the archetypical prison matron – not that I ever encountered one of those when I worked in a prison.

• I know that, when I lose that torso fat, I have subtle curves and have been identified by trainers as a “mesomorph” – for all the good that does.

So I know all these things about the size and shape of my body but I don’t know what I look like.

Mirrors are useless – except to show me that my skirt is the right length or my jeans need ironing or it’s time to colour my hair.

Photos help a little, sort of, sometimes.

It’s time for the People Watching Intervention!

I haven’t done this for a couple of years but it was very helpful last time.  First pick a person in your life who doesn’t have weight/body issues and who will be honest with you.

Then go to a public place, either indoors or wait for some warm weather because it doesn’t work if everyone is wearing heavy coats.

Park yourself in a busy place with cups of coffee and watch the world go by.  Your job is to try to identify people who approximately the same shape and size as you are.  Your partner’s job is to tell you you’re warped. After about an hour, if you’re paying attention, you might come to realise that you’re not as big as you thought you were.

It’s fun, it’s sociable, it’s almost free and it’s cheaper than therapy.

In the absence of a large indoor mall, I’m going to have to wait for the temperature to rise a few degrees but it’s definitely on my To Do list.

In the meantime, the husband sometimes points out a woman and says, “I bet you wish you looked like her.”  I always affirm this and he says, “You do!”. Oh.  Gotta work on this.