Better Health & Living: Article: The Skinny

Issue: January 2008

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The Skinny

by Susan Flagg Godbey

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I used to be unhappily thin. Unless you’re of a certain age and can remember newsstands before “Anorexic of the Month” celebrity covers, you may not remember—or even believe—that young women could judge themselves to be too thin. But they—and I—did. Curvy bombshells ruled the big screen and TV. Wonder bras had not yet been invented. All I wondered was when—or if—I’d ever “fill out” as our mothers would say. Twiggy was the one and only skinny celeb of the era, and hers was not a look I aspired to.

No sooner had I grown up emotionally and accepted my genetically slender self than work demands and motherhood steamrolled over my life, leaving me with no time to exercise and little resolve to eat well. Just my luck, I thought: I finally learn to be happy as I am—only to wake up on the heavy side of the scale.

Those extra pounds—unfortunately not deposited in erogenous zones, and no fun to lug around—lead me to add resistance training to my usual aerobic activities, and within a few months, I was startled to discover more lean muscle, greater strength, and a significantly trimmer figure. That success inspired me to get my diet back on track and add new sports to my repertoire, and for many years, I was delighted with both my body and energy. Fast forward through another eight years chock-a-block with character-building challenges, and I was once again depressed to find myself in a state I once described in a headline: Overwhelmed, Overstressed, and Overweight. I was a health editor, for cryin’ out loud! Why couldn’t I manage my weight? Simple answer: Life happened.

How interesting that, just as I’m taking control of my weight again, we’re running a feature called “5 Habits of Naturally Skinny People.” As I read it, I realized that at different points in my life, I’d quite unconsciously been doing every one of them. So, speaking as someone who has, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, looked at weight “from both sides now,” I can personally vouch for the smart habits we’re encouraging you to adopt in this story. Now all I have to do is stick with them until they become my healthy habits—again.

‘Til next time,

Susan Flagg Godbey