Happy Weight

I was reading an article in Self magazine on-line and it had a calculator to calculate your "Happy Weight". So being overly self conscious about my weight I jumped on it. I entered my height (5' 4"), age (39, in February), how many times I work out (I put 3 days a week as I used to do 5 and am currently not doing any) and frame (medium). Then Calculate.

135

135? What? Wait I am currently at 135 and not working out and eating generally what I want (trying not to over-indulge in the Holiday goodies). So why am I not happy? I really had to think hard about this. It all came down to, no matter how much I say I want to eat healthy, exercise to be healthy and not rely on the scale, I want to be 120lb again. It kills me (I'm almost crying here) to think that I can't get back down to 120. I want to be happy. I try to convince myself that my Photography make me happy and that when I work out I am happy and that even with working out less I'm happy. But I'm not. It makes me sad to say I want to be 120 again, but it also makes me sad that I may never be able to be 120 again. It's like I've lost my youth, I'll never be young again. Yet, I feel like if I can overcome this weight issue, a huge weight will be lifted from me. How can this be? This is such a strange and hard crossroads I have come to and I don't know what to do. I mean I know what I should do which is accept that 135 is OK and beautiful, but my mind says no. I have to be 120 and fit into that bikini.

I have turned this over every which way in my head and have come around to one conclusion. My 39th birthday will be the hardest for me. I think the weight issue has more to do with getting older than I thought. As I approach 39 (I know it's not 40, but close enough) I see my body changing more and more for the worse, which makes me sad. Yet I see how I have found other things in life that make me happy and I need to find the joy in those things because I have passed up too many joys in life because I had to work out or I was on a diet. This shift is going to be very difficult for me to accept even though I know it's for the better. I have to accept that I might not be 120 again, but I can still look hot (by maintaining a fit body). And there are more things to life than being skinny.