(There’s a title that’s sure to draw more than the usual overload of spam comments! LOL)

I can recall one brief year in college when I felt comfortable enough in my own skin to wear a bikini, and even then, the top was a racer-back, high-neck style (with a zipper that I kept pretty far up), and the bottoms were a high-waist cut. Bikinis were either explicitly forbidden or strongly discouraged when I was growing up; either way, I don’t remember having any. Ironically, the plus-size, one-piece with a skirted bottom that I wear now shows more cleavage than I ever would have dreamed back in the days when I thought weighing 140lbs was dreadful.

Even at the pinnacle of my athletic years, when I was swimming almost daily and biking all over the neighborhood, I wore a solid size 10. I remember having one pair of shorts in a size 8, but they were an anomaly. I was fit and muscular, but I did not have an hourglass figure — I’ve always resembled more of a rectangle. My hips and chest have been the same measurement for as long as I’ve ever measured my circumference, and although my waistline has grown and shrunk and grown some more, it has never been markedly more slender than my other measurements.

All that is to say, I dread shopping for bathing suits. I needed to buy a bodysuit-style one-piece for the super-sprint triathlon (<<read: super-short, not super-speed!) that my best friend and I participated in last weekend, and it was a humiliating reminder that I have much more work to do concerning my weight.

Three childbirths have secured the fact that I will never, ever wear a bikini again, even if I got down to what the size charts say I should weigh (which, by they way, is easily 30lbs less than what I’m aiming for). No one in public needs to see the wrinkly, stretched-out terrain that is my belly.

I thought about posting one of the dreadful pictures from this weekend here as motivation to myself, but I decided against it, because if I ever run for office, that will be the first snapshot to hit the tabloids, and I would feel humiliated. I’ll just keep the picture in my mind and try to pull it to the forefront when I want carbs and other junk. It’s easier said than done, obviously, or else I would have succeeded by now. I told myself that I would never roller coaster my weight, but that’s exactly what I’ve done. Sigh.

So, I’m re-motivated to get serious: eat right and move more. Next year’s photos will not be so embarrassing!!