If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people. – Jim Eason

Let’s ponder this quote.  Let’s dissect it.  Let’s start with a little story.

The other day my daughter was describing someone to me and when I asked her how old this person was, she said, “Well, he is old.” and I said,  “Older than me?” and much to my surprise she said,”No, like a couple of years younger than you.”

Then, I replied, “You called me old.”

She said, “Well you are older than me.”

The bottom line is my own dear daughter called me old.  Sure, I am sort of like fortyish or something of the sort, but does that make me old?  And what about fat?

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I headed to Arizona for a little sunshine.  I packed my bags, packed some of my summer clothes that had been tucked away since last year, and we headed to Phoenix.  So upon arrival we decided to head to the pool.  Awww the sweet sunshine.  I put on my bathing suit from last year and noticed it did not fit me the same.  Without going into gross detail, I was rolling in my suit a bit more. Ok…I will get blunt, my butt was hanging out and it wasn’t suppose to do that. I mean my swimming suit is not a Brazilian cut or anything like that.  In addition,  my abdominal area had expanded since last year and I can’t talk about my aunties as Anne Lamott brilliantly named her thighs.. Uggg.  Ok…not a problem I said to myself, I would wear my suit with pride.

But then down at the pool I started to look around… I noticed the skinny, little, non cellulite college students, I noticed the slender mom’s with children, yet, with the reflection of child bearing. Then there were the “robust older citizens”.  I got to thinking.  Am I old?  Am I fat?  So where do I fit in on this body image scale?  I turned to my husband and said, “Do I look fat?”

This is a really bad question to ask your husband at the pool on a romantic vacation. My husband has enough wisdom to understand there is really no good answer to such a question.  I believe he avoided the question and diverted me on to other topics.

After our trip, I started realizing that most of my clothes had shrunk over the last few months.  Ok…just maybe I have added a few extra pounds, however these pounds did come in handy through the cold winter, I completely understand now why whales do the same.

But, something in me kept thinking about this old, fat and forty thing.  I finally called a friend who is a health coach and the next thing I know I was handing her my credit card to pay for this new dietary program, because clearly I don’t have enough discipline to do this on my own. It’s all so twisted isn’t it?

We all have heard that diets are bad and it’s really about changing your eating habits.  Blah blah blah.  In the end, you have to eat more vegetables, less fat, and less food.  I call that a diet and its a bit like torture.

So its been four days since I have been on my new quote “eating plan” to reduce my chances of old fat and forty, and it’s tough.  But what is crazy, is I can’t cheat because I paid for this insane thing, and my husband is fully aware of my payment to do this.  Bless his skinny tall frame.

I will certainly let you all know if this works because if it doesn’t, I will just have to settle on heading toward robust and forty, but I refuse to be old!

Side note:  I did finally see the person that my daughter had described to me as old and he was….maybe 30 years old.  So now you all know that if you are 30 or older, my daughter thinks you are old.