Having run to the park where the exercise machines are, I sat down and dipped my head to catch my breath. My eyeballs were met with the sight of the paunch. Or the return of the roll, or the budge resistant bulge. I like to think it was only looking so pumped because of the position I was sat in. But it may have more to do with the incessant consumption of cakes and crisps. (I’m proud of my twenty years of sobriety but not so proud that my addictive tendencies still get the better of me). Perhaps the recent growth spurt of the paunch is an almost 50 thing. Of course, all things perimenopause can also contribute to expanding middles.
I don’t like my paunch but like a lot of things I don’t like (in life), I am learning to accept it a little more graciously. On a good day. I’ve decided I’m willing to make the necessary trade off by allowing myself to eat the exceptionally delicious cakes I bake (I’m not a fan of false modesty) while letting go of my desire to maintain a minimum sized paunch. Since the age of forty my body has been gradually changing in numerous ways. The way my paunch fills out more quickly than before, following less cakes, is the latest in a long line of bodily changes. I am practising going with this process rather than fighting it. Sort of. I accepted the overnight expansion of my thighs around forty, as well as the overnight thievery of my waist a few years back, but I’m still struggling to accept the presence of the paunch.
In fact, my previous blog showcased one of my preferred ways of managing the paunch, by which I mean disguising it (I hope). I am referring to patterns on clothes as in the bigger, brighter and bolder, the more effective at drawing the eye of others away from the paunch. At least this is what I am attempting to achieve! And there are also these ruffles around the middle of swimsuits, dresses and the likes. I’m sure they have a more sophisticated name, but I don’t know it. Either way these are also a paunch disguising middle aged helper.
Somewhere along the line, I must have internalised the message that paunches, otherwise known as stomachs, are something to be embarrassed about and therefore hidden. I’m not trying to claim I have the biggest paunch in town, but I am aware that it is a fuller, more regular, persistent feature, the closer I get to fifty.
I have a complicated relationship with food and my body due to the aforementioned addictive traits. Sometimes people dismiss any comment I make on the subject with remarks such as,
“You don’t need to worry about your weight Jo”.
In truth, none of us need to worry about anything. However, for me at least, I can worry on a world record achieving level about anything and everything. However, I try (I sometimes succeed and I sometimes learn), to practice taking responsibility for what I can, in this instance, looking after my body. Following fifteen years of abusing it with drink and drugs, I’ve spent the last twenty trying to reverse the damage. These days I try to listen to what my body says so I can give it what it needs rather than what it doesn’t (in theory).
For example, this week after a particularly piggish crisp devouring session, my stomach said,
“Jo, I feel uncomfortable trying to digest the type and volume of food you’ve just shovelled in me. Would you mind putting less of that type of food in and more of the type that feels good afterwards and not just during?”.
Like most things I don’t really want to hear because I don’t want to act upon them, I registered this but remained too non-committal to reply. The next night I repeated the same scenario. What madness. For me, all crisps have the pringle, ‘once I start I can’t stop’ effect. This meant two nights and two subsequent mornings were spent with a sore stomach, which very graciously refrained from telling me, “I told you so”.
This whole situation was a bit crap so I had a stern word with myself. The next night when my hands had furiously shovelled in two bowls of highly flavoured, perfect crunch offering crisps, I took a pause. I wrestled the crisp sack out of my hand and dragged myself in to the kitchen, kicking and moaning (I can’t stand screaming).
Once inside, I saw that the kitchen looked like I’d been visited by burglars, and, or teenagers. This was sufficient to distract me in to starting the end of day clear up. I cannot face a chaotic kitchen in the morning, even after a coffee. I stayed focused on the task at hand while the pull of the crisps, stayed strong. But, by the time I finished making the kitchen respectable, the urge to keep shovelling had passed. Mostly. And I chose to brush my teeth immediately before I could change my mind. I can’t stand eating anything after I’ve brushed my teeth. I never got menthol cigarettes either.
Anyway, learning is slow, experiential and repetitive. But that’s ok, because I am strong willed, persistent and committed to growing. However, I would prefer the growth to be more psychological and less physical, especially where the paunch is concerned. The one step I am taking to help myself in my mission, is to accept that I cannot co-habit with crisps. Either I stop buying them ‘for my party’, or I store them at the house of someone who has consistently mastered the art of crisp consuming control.
There is something on this subject that has stayed with me for years and still makes me smile. An old friend introduced me to some music. I am very grateful for those who do this as I am clueless about song or artist names. In fact, I’m rubbish at everyone’s names these days, more so since the hormones went rogue. Anyway, the music was by Lauryn Hill who was holding an intimate gathering to talk and share her songs. I can’t remember the context but she spoke about her stomach sticking out and said something about how we all have stomachs as much as society may teach us to hold them in and hide them! She was so free and accepting of her stomach that I couldn’t help but smile. It still encourages me to practice accepting and loving my paunch while also trying to maintain some boundaries about what I throw in it.
And so, at almost fifty I am trying to love me and my middle-aged body, in a healthier way, including loving my usually pattern covered paunch.