I got sick of my fat face. My fat face exploded like a just-popped-open can of Pillsbury dough whenever I smiled. That's what finally propelled me to lose 15 pounds in May 2000, right before I turned 44. I have never been a big person — I am 5-foot-5 with a tiny skeleton — but here I was, creeping up on 140 pounds and three chins. As if the fat face weren't bad enough, I had also grown a Frump Hump: a tube of flub that circled me like a Bundt cake just below my waist. My Frump Hump was like a second hip, devouring my original waistline and side-swiping furniture when I'd try to turn corners. I tried to justify my decline into Dowdyhood by telling myself: This is what happens when women turn 40. That's why they wear elastic waists, big shirts and long jackets. That's why they start admiring cheerful appliquéd sweaters instead of foxy, tight Earl Jeans. That's why long vests keep coming back in style. To make myself feel better, I started noticing Frump Humps on fellow 40-ish women. Oh, my gosh, there's Marie Osmond selling dolls on QVC! She's wearing a long jacket! She has a Frump Hump! I started buying pants from Chico's and Eileen Fisher — cute designs, sure, but let's face it. These are baggy clothes meant to forgive the Frump Hump. I bought Ann Taylor pants because they're cut large, and I could still stuff my butt into Ann's single-digit sizes. But I was pushing it. Not even Ann Taylor could keep my expand-o-butt in a size 8 much longer. In May 2000, two things happened: I went to Disney World and became disgusted by the girth all around me, and by my own piglike eating habits. When you leave the table at a Disney restaurant and groan, "Uffff. I'm so stuffed! I can't believe I ate all that," that should be a sign unto you: Just because you paid for it, just because somebody served it to you, just because it tastes good, doesn't mean you have to eat all of it! Stop eating like a pig! Something is desperately wrong with a society when 6-year-olds are so fat they have to be pushed around the Magic Kingdom in a jumbo stroller. Then my friend Felicia called and said she lost 20 pounds because she wanted "a brief revival of Babe-dom" before she turned 45. That was it. Somewhere between my disgust, my shame and my narcissism, I experienced my eureka moment! I wanted a brief revival of Babe-dom, too! Maybe it wasn't too late to get cheekbones. Maybe it wasn't too late to take one more spin in a pencil skirt or tight boot-cut jeans! Maybe it wasn't too late to turn heads, at least the heads of men over 50 with glaucoma or some other degenerative eye condition. I'm vain. I admit it. So what. I got my fat face out of the fridge and my Frump Hump off the couch. I bought a Tae-Bo Gold exercise tape (designed for people over 40!) for $16. Tae-Bo is one part punching, one part kicking and one part motivation. It's hard at first, I won't lie. It was the first regular exercise I had ever done in my life, and for the first month I hated it every minute. But I did the half-hour workout religiously every other day, sometimes five days out of seven. When Billy Blanks, the studly video instructor, urged me to "be in control of your body!" I clung to his commands. I couldn't stop getting older, but I could stay in control of my body. I watched what I ate, but I don't believe in diets. My simple rules: Everything in moderation. Watch portions. Eat small meals. Don't skip breakfast. Don't butter bread. Don't carry your food. (I never eat while walking or driving, for example.) Don't drink your calories. (Why spend 200 calories on a Snapple when you could have a few cookies?) Stop eating when you are full. Don't eat unless you're hungry. Six weeks later, I fit into an Ann Taylor size 6. By September 2000, I bought myself a fine, sexy pair of black, low-slung BCBG pants. Size 4. I'm as thin as I was 20 years ago, plus I have abs and calf muscles, which I have never had before. Welcome back, Babe-dom. (Well, OK, maybe it's not bona fide Babe-dom, but at least I am now the Babe-iest I can be without benefit of liposuction or an eye lift, and I have stayed at this weight for almost three years.) I still do Tae-Bo, and I have added Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds tapes to my exercise routine. I still try to exercise five days out of seven. And I am openly and unashamedly obnoxious about the need for staying fit. If I can do it, anybody can do it. Just last night, right before my mother and I indulged in a small slice of holiday pie, I persuaded her to do a 1-mile walking tape with me. She's 70, cute, round and devoted to her elastic-waist pants, but what the heck: It's never too late for Babe-dom. Jan Tuckwood writes for The Palm Beach Post. |
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