My Instant Solution to Age-Related Weight Gain!

This pic does for me what images of spiders do to arachnophobes. Photo by Andres Ayrton on Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/plus-size-woman-standing-on-scale-6551401/

If you, like me, are a woman of Boomer vintage, then it’s likely you have some issues around weight. Remember who the influencers were, body-image-wise, back in our day?

There was Twiggy, AKA Leslie Hornby, “the face of 1966” — 5 feet, 6 inches tall, 91 pounds, measurements 31–22–32. Jean Shrimpton, acknowledged as the world’s first supermodel, weighed all of 120 pounds, but then, she also stood five foot ten.

The July, 1963 issue of Harper’s featured the article “High Living on Low Calories” and touted the famously noxious adage:

A woman can never be too rich or too thin.

I was barely aware of Harper’s in the 1960s. But I devoured Seventeen magazine, which was crammed with advice for adolescent girls in our awkward stages who hoped one day to achieve the gamine ideal:

-’Meal at a friend’s house? Take a little of everything, but imagine you are a frail 19th century beauty and eat like a bird.”

-’What happens when you return from your summer holiday ten pounds heavier? Let us hope the condition is temporary. Meanwhile, you have to dress to minimize.”

-’Chinese restaurants are kind to dieters. Have only a half-cup of rice… Dessert? Make it one fortune cookie.”

Meanwhile, my single most dreaded day every year at school was when the nurses from the public health department would arrive in our classroom to weigh and measure us. Not only was this operation carried out in full view of the rest of the class, but for some perverse reason, the scale was positioned at the front of the room. From there, Nurse One called out each student’s name and their resultant numbers to Nurse Two.

Who stood with her clipboard at the back of the room.

In fifth grade, I was five-foot-two and weighed 110 pounds. By today’s standards, that hardly raises an eyebrow, but back then? I had twenty pounds on all of the girls and most of the boys. “Fatso” was the least inventive of the names I got called.

Sixty-one years later, the prospect of stepping on a scale at my annual Medicare exam activates my inner ten-year-old. I cope by refusing to look at the numbers — which is harder to do nowadays with those infernal digital readouts.

It doesn’t matter that I’m normal weight. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve espoused self-acceptance and body positivity and pursued fitness for fitness’s sake, not some hopelessly unrealistic cosmetic standard.

All that cultural messaging, absorbed through my pores at an age when I was most vulnerable to it, doesn’t relent easily. I spent most of my adult life obsessing about my number on the scale, on a constant progression from diet to diet, only achieving my dream weight at times when I was under enormous stress or trauma.

There was even a period when I felt slightly, secretly envious of anorexic celebrities — not because I wanted to look like a walking skeleton, but because I wished I had that kind of willpower.

Finally, several years ago, I threw my bathroom scale in the trash. Free at last, right?

Not so fast.

The other day I attended a professional conference. This meant foraging in my closet for my tailored work pants, which I rarely have occasion to wear nowadays.

I tried on three pairs. One refused to button, one buttoned only at the cost of telltale pull wrinkles across the belly and side pockets that stuck out like misplaced ears. The third pair snugged on and got me through the day, but hardly comfortably.

After combing through all the possible explanations for this phenomenon — spontaneous closet-induced shrinkage, an accidental switch at the dry cleaners, or perhaps these pants always felt like this and that’s the real explanation for why I left my job — the conclusion was clear.

I’ve put on weight.

My inner, overpadded fifth grader is re-emerging. Mostly around my hips and thighs, apparently.

I know, I know. This happens to most of us, right? Why do I imagine I should look the same at age 71 as I did at 31, or 41, or even 61 (when those damn pants still fit)?

Maybe I thought the Angel of Age-Related Weight Gain would pass by my house of flesh, because I do all the propitiatory things. I get plenty of exercise, I eat well, I abjure soda and junk food (mostly).

My pants say otherwise. And I’m kind of pissed off about it.

It turns out that if I decide I’m going to get back into those judgy trousers, I’m going to have to take action.

That means losing some weight, which means acquiring another scale. And we all know how I feel about scales.

All of this is to explain the simple brilliance of my new plan. I offer it to you, free of charge, in the spirit of body-dysmorphic-Boomer sisterhood.

Full disclaimer: this method is only effective if you live in America or a similarly benighted country that uses the English system of measurement.

Because I’m talking about reducing that pesky number on the scale by looking at it differently.

Not in pounds, my friend. In kilos.

One kilo equates to 2.2 pounds, which means that whatever your pull on Earth’s gravity, its number is not even half as much in kilos.

A quick search on the Interwebs reveals that, as of 2023, the average height and weight of adult Amerian woman is around five feet, four inches and 170 pounds.

That’s dauntingly over the ideal weight range for that height, which is between 108–145 pounds according to the CDC (while it still has funding).

Until you consider that 170 pounds is only 77 kilos. Better already, right?

I’m guessing (I don’t know, because I haven’t bought a scale yet) that slipping those pants on with triumphant ease will require me to lose about 10 pounds.

Ick. That sounds like a lot. It’s not a mountain to climb, but it’s a tedious hill, and I balk at the task.

But through the simple magic of the metric system, I’d only need to lose 4.5 kilos!

Easy peasy. I should be able to lose 4.5 anythings with little problem. Hey, I’ve lost at least that percentage of my investment portfolio since January 20, without breaking a sweat.

And you can do this too!

If you have scale neurosis like I do (and I’m willing to bet a free trial of Ozempic* that I’m far from alone), then all you have to do is change from English units to metric.

If you possess a digital scale manufactured in the past five or ten years, this is probably already a feature. You simply have to unearth your scale’s user manual to figure out how to program the switch.

If not, you can buy a digital scale that will give you your numbers in kindly kilograms starting at around twenty bucks. More if you want to zap electricity through your hands and feet to allegedly determine the composition of whatever those kilos consist of — bone, water, muscle, fat — but you do you. Make it simple on yourself.

That’s what I plan to do. Kilos for the win, baby! Or, the loss.

Or maybe I’ll just buy new pants.

*Not really. Poetic license only. No Ozempic for you here, sorry.