Mom Jeans (and Everything Else.)

Have I mentioned to you that I am doing “Body for Life”? Probably not, because it’s queer that I’m doing it at all, plus I’m only doing a sort of half-assed version that handily avoids the dietary deprivation and focuses instead on the weight-lifting and cardio program. Which undoubtedly means that I will continue to sit here 20 pounds above my desired weight for another 5 months, but at least I will have rippling muscles underneath the flab, the wrinkled belly skin, and the map of spider veins across my legs. Sweet!

(Yes, yes, I am feminine beauty incarnate and amazed at “what my body is capable of” bearing two gorgeous, healthy children; hear me roar, blah blah blah. Give me back my perky boobs.)

The Body for Life book includes lots of pictures that are supposedly taken at the beginning and the end of the 12-week journey. The sad-faced, lank-haired couples limply holding hands between their rolling hips and doughy bellies are replaced with dynamic, muscle-bound specimens with big grins and small swimsuits. The floppy skate wings and hairy ham hocks that were their arms are replaced with sleek, toned triceps and stringy biceps; the Pillsbury Dough Boy tummies with rock-hard abs. One can only assume they are now having loads of athletic sex. Twelve weeks to this kind of change seems exceedingly unrealistic, but the book makes the claim that it IS possible (if you only believe, Virginia).

I haven’t taken a “before” picture of myself because I feel a little too much like those sad sacks in the book, and I don’t really care to have that memorialized. If by the end of my own cookie-popping 12-week journey to physical perfection I have that kind of miraculous transformation, I will, however, don my skimpiest bikini and flaunt it for you. I can say this because I know there is no chance in hell that’s going to happen. I don’t have the will power to swing serious exercise AND a diet. Oh, let’s just face facts; I can NEVER swing a diet. The moment I tell myself I have to eat a certain way, I rebel against myself and start loading the sweets onto the conveyor belt to my stomach. I can’t stand this ornery, self-defeating quirk about myself, but try as I might I have yet to find a way to outwit myself.

I don’t really want to have to start hosting Denver Fashion Week for Moms, though, so maybe I need to figure this one out.