The Peace Train

Millions of thoughts, thousands of hours, miles of expended energy to stay the same.  Thirty years ago my weight hovered around 140, it hovers around there today.  Some would say I have maintained my weight....well, not really.

The past thirty years consisted of (drumroll please) ...hundreds of diets, cleanses and fasts.  Thousands of exercise classes, miles ran, and weights lifted.  ten pounds lost, ten pounds gained, over and over again.  Happiness never found...

Clothes thrown on the floor in fits of anger, negative, hurtful, self  bashing comments from the mini-me who lives in my head.  She was making sure I knew how fat I was, how much of a failure I was, how I would never look the way I was supposed to look.  She had me pegged.  I couldn't lose weight and keep it off, or stick to a diet.  She knew I had no will power.

How can this be? How can I still weigh the same?  Haven't I done what I was supposed to do?  I dieted, I exercised my butt off...hours at a time, day after day...yet, I stay the same.

I look back on pictures now, and wonder what I was so upset about?  Why was I so unhappy with my weight?  Why did I continue to hate myself, punish myself?

I will never be 30, 40, or 50 again.  It is finally time for a truce.  A cease fire.  An end.

Let's eat to enjoy the experience, the taste, the company we keep, the energy it gives us.  Let's move for the freedom, the enjoyment, and the comradere of friends.  Let's stop believing what we see in magazines and on TV.  Enough with the quick fixes, and the negative self talk.  Fire up and board the appreciation train.  Build up speed with our own acceptance, and race along by sharing our new found freedom with others.  A new meaning for the Peace Train....