Week 42

Down 2.6 (56.8 lbs total)

I've begun exercising (gasp). Not much mind you, just the 10 minute workouts from the Oprah website plus about 20 minutes of Qi Gong, but enough to make some of the larger muscles in my butt and thighs burn. I'm not ready to hit a gym or try a bootcamp, but in the privacy of my living-room I can be ungainly and sweaty without garnering the opprobrium of the already fit. I am at the point where skin on my belly and thighs looks like crinkled tissue paper and apparently the only sure way to get it to shrink is to tone the muscle underneath, lose the fat and hope that good nutrition and hydration allows it to regain some of its elasticity.

Or plastic surgery.

I can hear my younger, firmer self saying things like "I would never have plastic surgery - it's so fake" or "these women should just age gracefully". I think the wisdom of aging is knowing that your younger, firmer self was an idiot.