A few facts first. At a height of 1.70 meters I weigh 66.5 kilos. In the morning, sober and stark naked. This results in a BMI of 23.2 – average normal weight, but emotionally it falls more into the “just about okay” category. Especially after comparing visits to the sauna, I remember what my teenage friend said in 1987: “Well, you’re not exactly slim.” Very charming indeed. I was even more offended when, a little later, my English host mother beamed at me after looking at my slim friend: “You really look healthy!”
I know: A little more exercise and a little less chocolate would help to metabolize some of the body’s own mass. You don’t need a degree in quantum physics to do this. But as soon as the sauna crisis has subsided, I regularly find out: I don’t want to. With my body it’s such a (round) thing: It arms itself against strenuous phases of life with a little more padding. And he gets rid of them again in lighter phases. I just have to let him.
That’s how it goes up and down. Although I never had Obama upper arms or a Halle Berry waist, not even when I was 17. But there are, for example, these 38 suede pants hanging in my closet. When it suited me ten or twelve years ago, I was working a simple job, had light to casual relationships and felt like the kick-out song at my favorite bar at five in the morning: “Easy like Sunday Morning”. No comparison to the 90’s tent-like grunge blue t-shirt. My favorite part after six months of diploma exams and thesis sessions. Back then, around the hips, I looked the same as I do now, 17 years and two kids later. I still have the t-shirt for sleeping.
Not much happened between the lightweight and middleweight phases. I neither counted calories nor worked as a currywurst tester. The pounds just come and go as I need them. According to the old footballer maxim: After the game is before the game. At the moment, a little more fighting weight is good for me. I need that. During the morning children’s row about the right clothing in colder temperatures (no, not the turquoise glittery little one and not the sleeveless football shirt either!), in the normal, daily madness between deadlines, daycare closing times and the bit of household chores. In the evening I lounge on the sofa, enjoy the fruits of the modern confectionery industry and keep quiet. Move? During the day I tow a child’s total weight of up to 33 kilos, once a week I tow my own 66.5 kilos to theYoga – and this relaxing hour doesn’t upset my calorie balance.
Someday easier times will come again. All by itself. Until then, I’ll be happy about body-hugging tunic fashion, won’t tell my friends that my husband weighs less than me, and avoid the full-length mirror when going to the sauna. Or I get on the scales with my mother. It basically shows two kilos less. Four pounds in four seconds! Easy like sunday morning.
