The year 2012 officially marks five years since my very public weight loss as Shape magazine's Weight-Loss Diary columnist. I wish I could tell you that I've easily kept off all the pounds I worked so hard to lose. But that wouldn't be true.
It hasn't been easy -- and not all of the weight has stayed off.
The reality is that since that experience, I've entered a different decade of my life -- one in which many women face metabolic changes that make maintaining weight difficult. A new and demanding job has left little time for the lengthy, vigorous gym sessions that were a huge part of taking off those pounds. And five years after Weight-Loss Diary, I'm also the mother of two teenagers, with incredibly demanding school, sports, work and activity schedules of their own. The healthy meals that I once carefully prepared too often give way to hastily scraped-together meals from whatever's on hand -- or take-out from any one of our favorite restaurants.
If you've read You'd Be So Pretty If: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies - Even When We Don't Love Our Own, you know that what I gained during that year of sweat was worth so much more than what I lost. I gained a new attitude toward my body and a new perspective on my life. Those have stuck with me.
But I don't feel as good as I did then -- physically, that is -- when I was eating according to a well-planned system of maximum nutrition. These days, I feel great after a workout, but those workouts aren't frequent enough.
So, I need to re-dedicate myself to taking the best possible care of my body that I can. Some days, though, it's hard to make myself a priority when I'm being tugged from every direction. Fortunately, I got some motivational help earlier this week while watching the TV show "Parenthood" with my family. The episode recounted the Braverman family's attempt to drive hundreds of miles to see Zeke's mother, who was celebrating her 86th birthday. At one point, my son turned to me and said, "Mom, I'll drive 500 miles to see you when you're 86."
And I felt my eyes fill with tears.
See, my mother died at 60. Her mother died at 63. Role models for healthy female aging are few in my family.
That's my motivation for re-dedication this year: The mental picture of myself as a little old lady. While too many women tape photos of bikini-clad fitness models to the refrigerator door as motivation, you won't find those images in my house. I'm reaching for a different kind of health and fitness goal.
Here's hoping that 2012 is our healthiest year yet!
