My Butt

We're all friends here, right?  I have been pretty transparent with all of you about this whole process.  Well, there is one thing vexing me right now.  When a person loses weight, it never goes the way you expect it to.  Foods you never expect become trouble spots.  Your body doesn't do what you want it to.  And no matter how hard you try, how good you are, there are some things you just can't control.  It is so troublesome, it made me write haiku.

Losing weight is great,
But never in the right place.
Where's my bottom line?


That's right.  Of all the weight I have lost, it appears that my body has focused on reducing my butt.  I know there are many women out there who would be thrilled to have that happen. But, you see, I didn't have much of a butt to begin with.  It is a Staples family trait.  My father had no butt.  My sons do not have very large behinds.  And I don't have much of a booty either.  Most normal people have some sort of roundness going on behind them.  My back just goes straight down into my legs.  It is really a bit ridiculous.

It makes it difficult to find pants.  They just slide down, which means I have to cinch my belt tight enough to make my eyes bug out to keep them up.  Add to it that most of my weight is concentrated in my belly.  I have to keep my pants belted under my belly, allowing it to hang down.  This means there is really nothing to stop the pants from slipping.  There have been numerous times where I found myself desperately grabbing the back of my pants to keep them up as I climbed stairs or carried Gabe.  That is always the best time - when you are carrying a baby and a big bag of groceries and you feel the waistband sliding down.  You just hope you can wiggle and squirm to avoid a full moon at midday.  And that was when I weighed a lot.  But, (no pun intended - maybe a small pun) now it is even worse.

I noticed it after my first week.  Dieters spend a lot of time looking at themselves in the mirror.  They want to see progress.  So I try to figure out if my belly is shrinking or if my face looks thinner.  And I noticed something was missing.  My butt had apparently disappeared.  Sure, it left behind a big of droopy skin.  But the butt was gone.  I got a bit irritated at the entire diet - almost like it was an entity.  "Oh sure!" I yelled at The Diet.  "Take my butt.  Ignore the GIANT MOUND OF BELLY right on the other side.  Go for the butt."  It seems a bit silly to yell at a anthropomorphized diet.  But who am I going to blame?  I guess no one.  However, I wish I could.

Seriously.  I have plenty to offer The Diet.  My belly is first on my list.  I have these freaky man boobs - moobs, I guess.  They are more than welcome to leave.  That bizarre hypotenuse of fat between my chin and neck is also allowed to be removed.  But, please, stop taking the one thing holding up my pants.  I have already had to drop down from my 48" belt to my 44" belt - and it is on the last hole.  Does it help?  Just ask the poor people who live across the parking lot from me.  I'm sure they have had to endure the disturbing sight of a band of pale flesh peeking out from between my sweatshirt and jeans when I come back from taking the kids to school.

The weird thing is that as the diet progresses, I will drop down in waist size, and then go back up.  Eventually, my stomach will shrink enough that I will actually be able to button my pants over my gut.  That will mean I need my bigger belt.  And it will give my tail some assistance in the pants retention department.  Until then, just try to avoid walking behind me when I have to climb stairs or carry things.

It is strange, the fact that after you lose all this weight you have these unintended results.  There's the disappearing butt.  There's the appearance of more wrinkles since the face is no longer so full and puffy, like a juice injected chicken breast.  And there's the extra skin.  I can already see that happening on my stomach.  I hate that so much.  It just stays there.  It is kind of a reminder.  Even though there is so much progress, there are these marks that take so much longer to go away.  And to really completely eliminate them, it requires extreme measures - surgery, tons of exercise, weight training.   It brings home the devastating effects of sin.  Even if you can make things right, there are still scars and damage that are carried with you.  God forgives us.  He makes us clean.  But we still live with the consequences.  Forgiveness doesn't make it all better.  It repairs the relationships.  It makes us healthy.  But we still have things to carry with us.  Kind of a good reminder.  So next time you are struggling with sin that is easily entangling, just think of my butt.  That should take care of it.