Walking My Path

We had a discussion yesterday in my women's studies class about weight. It makes me sick to sit in that room full of women who pretend to think that weight should be a non-issue but they continue to argue for people to restrict their diets in such ways as to force themselves to eat foods they don't like (i.e. vegetables) in order to be healthy. They sit there and quote BMI's (body mass index) at me as if it's some kind of mantra that will magically produce health. No, I am not the healthiest person on the planet. I'm perfectly fine with my level of health because everything I've wanted to do physically I have been able to do. It may take me longer, I may be sore at the end of it, but I can still do it. I may not always be aesthetically pleased by the way I look but that does not make me any different from any other woman in America...or at least not any that I know. There's always that moment when I step out of a dressing room or when I change into my swimsuit where it doesn't matter if I'm a size 20 or a size 2 I'm going to worry about how I look. I've been working on that a lot. Up until this year I did not own a single skirt that went above my knees because I thought that "fat" women were not supposed to wear shorter skirts. To this day I only own three short skirts. I eat vegetables. I eat tons of them...I eat lots of healthy food. I also eat unhealthy food. But I certainly do eat. *smiles* There have been times in my life where I have eaten like a bird. My senior year of high school I only ate one meal a day and that was almost always just a salad. Once a week I would eat a baked potato with light ranch dressing, salt and pepper. That was it. I was skinnier...60 pounds skinnier...but I seriously doubt I was healthier. The sad part of it is that I went a whole year without ice cream...Now I try to eat at least two meals a day. I try to eat at least one vegetable a day. That doesn't sound like much but when you have to deal with food service you're lucky if you can get something besides french fries and hamburgers. I have perfect blood pressure by the way. It's absolutely perfect. And did I mention that I'm beautiful? So I may not meet some standards of ideal...but I don't think I want to. Leave those standards for people who don't want ice cream.