Weighty issues...

When i was in Year 3, there was a new girl who joined our class. Her parents were newly divorced, which is probably why her siblings moved with her mother to our suburb, perhaps to start anew.

She had gorgeous blond hair and very sparkly blue eyes. She did dance classes outside of school and said that when she grew up, she would be a dancer for a dance studio. I admired her. She was everything i had wanted and wished i could be. Funny how you want and wish for weird things when you are young. Mind you i also wanted to be an archeologist, doctor, interior designer, architect, teacher, lawyer, etc. Those things didnt amount, obviously.

She was sat at my table and we became friends.

When we went to highschool we started out as friends but were placed in different classes. I was placed with all the smart people because i did well in my entrance exams. She was placed a couple of classes below. We sort of drifted apart. She hung out with the popular westerners. I was with all the smart asians who really cared about their studies.

When we finished high school, our grade was segregated between the asians, arabs, caucasians, others who made their own group. Its not that we werent civil towards each other, we were, but there was still a fine line between the groups.

When i finished high school i focused on fixing my asthma and becoming healthy. It was during summer that i started going to the gym. To swim and do aqua aerobics. Then i found that my allergy to chlorine didnt go away as i had hoped. So, i started going to the gym and did classes. Body Combat was awesome. Its like the down under version of Tae Bo.

This was when i met her again. She was actually doing the classes too. And then later she became an instructor.

The funny thing is, since we parted from high school in very civil manners...actually i dont even recall saying good bye...i didnt think she would acknowledge me, upon seeing me again.

You know those people that you know their names, but if you saw them on the street, you're hoping that they didnt see you, so that you dont have to stop and make idle conversations???

Well, thats what i thought it would be like at the gym. But she said hello, and i said hello back and we did have idle chit chat. Over the years, we mellowed, and we are not really friends, but we chat like we are. Since at the gym, I technically know her the best among all the strangers.

She not only instructs for Body Combat, but also Body Balance. Since i stopped doing Body Combat, we only chat in Body Balance now.

To me she has always been very pretty. During school her she was tall and slim with the right curves. When she started teaching classes at the gym, she was curvy but fit. Recently, i had noticed that she was looking slim. Well, she had been looking that way since i returned from my ankle injury.

Last night i asked her about her weight loss. She said it started about this time last year and she dropped 10 kilos by December (2005). She was getting married in October (2005) and when she realised that she could have lost 10 kilos instead of 6 kilos (by wedding day), she wished she had started earlier.

I asked her what did she do? She said she stopped eating junk food. But it was a very slow process. She would drop about a kilo in 3 weeks, instead of a kilo a week. She really likes dairy as well, and so she changed that by having alternatives and eating less. Instead of milk, she drinks soy milk instead. But she loves her baileys on ice, but she limits that now too.

Her mother is a regular at the gym, as well. And as we were discussing our weight, she provided her input. She said that her daughter would be complaining about her weight, but she recalls that she would stuff herself with comfort food. Like at Christmas, her mother would only make potato salad (with sour cream and mayo) for the celebrations and no other time. Her daughter declares that she loves potato salad, and instead of scooping some onto a plate, she would sit there scooping it straight out of the salad bowl.

Her mother remembers her when she was a dancer, "very long and slim", she describes her as. Thats my memory of her too. I thought the curves were just from the teen years, growing into a woman. But i guess she has proven me wrong. Because now, she is long and slim again.

It was funny how she was retelling stories about looking at her photo album and when she saw some bikini shots of herself. She thought that she was being "rude". A year earlier, she was curvy, ie. busty, and her bust was filling the bikini top. And on her holidays she would be on the beach and people would stare. She always wondered what it was, and now she thinks its because it was "rude" of her for fronting it.

I never thought of her as a prude. But from the way she was talking about it, it seems i was wrong, yet again. Because she was the pretty girl who was also popular, i assumed that she was confident and didnt have the same issues as myself. (She reminds me of Jennifer Hawkins). I mean, she did wear a bikini around the beach. While i would be in boardshorts and a tee would cover my bikini top.

Its not that she doesnt have curves now, but they have been shavened down a lot and her bust has reduced immensely too.

Her mother reminded me of a good point that just hasnt sunken into my brain. A guy at the gym once told her, when she was overweight (which i dont recall her ever being, and i see her regularly) that the ratio of "Food : Exercise" isnt "20 : 80", but it is "80 : 20".

Its all about the food. Very little about the exercising. And if you are exercising heaps and you are not seeing results, that is the big indicator.

Her daughter loves hot chips and burgers, use to eat heaps and heaps of junk. So, she cut it out. She eats it once in a while, now, otherwise she would go nuts. But she is relieved and happy that she has lost weight and has been keeping it off for a year now.

I was thinking about what junk i could cut out from my diet. And honestly, i dont eat the kind of junk that you can replace with a healthier meal. I dont eat Maccas, KFC, i like pizzas, but i prefer the woodfired kind which i dont eat often, so i am capable of avoiding that. I try to minimise the "cream" in take these days, replacing it with tomato base instead.

My problem is sugar. I'm a sugar addict. I love chocolate (which i have now replaced with dark choc of the organic kind). I love well made cakes. I love ice cream. I love lollies. I love biscuits and cookies.

Okay, there you have it. I have admitted to my addiction.

Next plan of action is to cut it out of my diet.

Hmm...thats going to be tough.

Look, i remember when i was young. I was slender. Actually i was a skeleton, because i was sick and couldnt eat properly. I dont know if i should genetically be thin. Throughout my years, i was chubby, skinny, chubby, slender, chubby, fit, then sorta in between, thin, chubby, fit. And thats only from when i was born until i was 15.

CM (the instructor from the gym) was always thin until she put on the weight in high school. Losing the weight now just restored her back to her slender self like the days of when she was a dancer. So, this is typically, what she should look like if she never put on the weight. But she tricked herself into believing that she was meant to be a "Heavy Girl" or a "Big Girl"...continuing the junk haul thinking that the class she was teaching that night would work it off!

Its weird. This girl always seemed so confident, but secretly she was worried about her looks too. And all the women attending her classes were aspiring to look like the curvier her, and were not talking just the heavy girls, im referring to the slightly chubby girls who just needed to drop 2-3kg.

Everyone thought that she was fit and healthy, the ideal shape. Yet, she saw herself as fat. But she was far from fat. And she wasnt Marilyn Monroe curvy either. She was a size 10-12 tall, fit girl. She now looks like a size 8, but for her height it is bordering the skinny side. Thankfully, she isnt trying to lose anymore. I dont want to see a waif training me in the classes.

I guess its motivation, nonetheless, that an instructor who you didnt think could lose weight - since they were already fit, managed to do it by changing their diet only.

So, bye-bye "Sugar!"

And "Hello World!"