Naked

I thought I'd include a nude photo of myself in this post, just to see who's still paying attention.  Then I remembered I don't have any nude photos of myself since the age of oh, about 10 months, and I'm happy for it to stay that way.

Also, I'm not digitising those naked baby photos, so you'll just have to do without.

This post is on body image, hence the reference to nudity.

I had an interesting moment the other day when I thought "well, I'm 34 and I think I'm finally having the 20s I would have wanted if I was paying attention."

This is for various reasons, in terms of lifestyle, career and extra-curricular activities.  When I was in my 20s I was an overweight couch potato who barely had any hobbies that got her away from books and computer screens.

I'm much more active, now, and I have a physique to match.  At my worst, in my 20s, I was hovering at about 95-98k.  For the past few years I've been hovering steady at 75-78.  At the same time, my muscle definition has been improving, so even though I haven't lost much weight over the past three years I think I'm still replacing flab with muscle, so I regard my current weight as "not so bad".

I still have a fair amount of flab to shift - which, as is standard for my body type, is couched around my hips, thighs and lower abdomen.  But I'm not that stressed about it.  I figure I'll just try to eat better and try to keep up a sensible and sustainable level of exercise and if I'm still carrying a bit of "conditioning"... well I'm probably meant to.

a) I'm a woman, b) I'm Caucasian.  We're supposed to carry stores of fat in certain key locations - it's biologically normal.

I found myself thinking, the other day "man, if I had this body back in my 20s..."

And then I realised that, the end of that sentence would be "...I'd have hated it just as much as I hated the body I did have."

I look at myself now and see the improvement.  I appreciate my current physique because I know what it was, and I can't help but think "there's less of me, and look!  I have muscles now!"

But if I hadn't lost weight and gained muscle - if I'd sorted out my lifestyle sooner and hadn't stacked on the weight after puberty and let poor choices add to it in my twenties - I'd be seeing the flaws, rather than the success.

As previously established, a) I'm a woman, b) I'm Caucasian.  That seems to dictate a level of complete dissatisfaction with one's body.  I don't know if that's biologically normal, but it's certainly part of our culture.

My physique is far from supermodel (unless you count the 17th century - I'd totally be a supermodel back then), and I think, if I didn't have the previous version of me to compare it to, I would be seeing it in a completely different light.

Which sucks a little.

I feel sorry for all the young girls who have never been ugly, and therefore have no idea how beautiful they are.