I will never be a skinny woman. Oh, and not because I don’t know how, either. Nope. I am mighty well-versed in the art of diet and exercise, because I resided under the big top of one of the greatest health & fitness shows ever on earth. You see, I lived under the tutelage of the handsome King of the Strongmen and the lovely corseted Queen of Beasts who tutored and trained any and all who came to their tent. During the golden era of the fitness craze, when low-to-no carb eating was the new goal of the brawn and the beautiful, the king and queen would hand out ketone test strips* to determine who was “in ketosis” in order to ultimately figure out who would find favor in the royal couple’s eyes. [FYI, ketosis, according to webmd.com is: “a normal metabolic process, something your body does to keep working. When it doesn’t have enough carbohydrates from food for your cells to burn for energy, it burns fat instead.” FYI also: it can also be terribly dangerous and I leave that up to you, to learn more about that.]

Before I was old enough to drive myself to school, and right past the mini mart where small squares of (390 calories/47 gram of carbohydrates) carrot cake were sold, I had been taught that bananas (100+ cal/27g carb), commercially available orange juice (100+ cal/27g) and the pb&j only found at my friends houses (a whopping 400+ calories and 42g or more of carbohydrates) were all horrible, evil foods of the devil (you’ll forgive me if I actually paraphrase here, but that was definitely the strong, STRONG emotion behind the lessons I’d been taught of food and figures over the years).  When I added my driver’s license to my wallet I tacked on freedom and a swift 5 pounds to my back pockets.

The bending of mirrors came about slowly, as the king and queen had wildly differing views about the input and output of the machinations of beauty. Where the king firmly believed that manual labor and time spent hoisting heavy iron in a controlled environment kept the effects of the nutritional demons at bay, the queen was a bit more lackadaisical about the physical aspects of it all.  She was a devout believer that deprivation made the temple of the body the best it could be, loudly bragging at many nighttime feasts that all she’d consumed during the day were her holy grails of black coffee (and heaven help you if you questioned the small amount of red wine carbs that she consumed served by tableside jesters, as this was surely forgivable after such heroic feats of starvation).

When faced with powerful opinions about what you eat, what you wear and what you weigh – it begins to bow and flex the mirrors of your mind. Leaner.org explains the logic of what the average bear sees in mirrors as “the angle of incidence equaling the angle of reflection.”  Or, more scientifically they state it as: “…the angles in question are ‘from the normal,’ that is, they’re the angle between the beam and the normal to the mirror. (What’s normal? In geometry and optics, normal means perpendicular. So, the normal line to the mirror is the line perpendicular to it.)”  Jeez. I don’t have real clue what any of that means, but man — they throw the word “normal” around an awful lot, don’t they?  Under the big top of the king and queen — thanks to obsession to physical detail and special lighting — one soon learned that anything you would see was definitely NOT normal.  But, cheese and crackers (200+ cal/20+ carbs BTW), as a ringside observer, I did not learn what normal was until many years later.

Before there was Photoshop, there was airbrushing and the king and queen ruled over imagery of the top specimens of physical perfection sold in all the kingdoms of the world. Even without this magical airbrushing, the creatures of perfection raised the bar higher than the average dancing circus bear could ever hope to achieve.  Mystical creatures of physical perfection spend most of their days and night attending to the needs of the flesh, while the rest of us… have kind of been warned against that.

I will never be a skinny woman because thanks to a couple of solid reasons —

One reason, is that I was fortunate enough to have the Grand Dame of Moderation living in one of the those rings under the big top for many years, with her whip-strong opinions about, well — everything. The Grand Dame was a strong woman of eastern seaboard stock, and she firmly believed in the occasional all American chocolate bar (often making a request for them, as she secretly handed me a five dollar bill, before I left for school and that mini mart of the small squares of carrot cake). While the King of the Strongmen and the corseted Queen of Beasts presided over their loyal royal subjects, the Grand Dame made sure that those who stopped by her ring enjoyed the occasional slice of toast or slice of Dupar’s pie. So, while I can diet and deny with the best of them, I had more smiles and laughter served up in the company of the Grand Dame.  Pretty heady stuff.

However, the #1 main reason I will never be a skinny woman is thanks to the funhouse mirror that has never left my line of vision, thanks to years of comments made under the big top.  The king and queen had a gift for bending the truth, until it no longer resembled what was normal (even without airbrushing and Photoshop)  It is only logical that when someone hears comments about how they look, from an early age, their reflection bows and bends.  Like when you hear things like:

• You’re too short for most fashions.
• Your legs are not long enough. Such a long trunk.
• Losing 10/15/20 pounds would make you look better.
• Oh, never wear horizontal stripes again, you look like the fat lady in the circus.
• Why do you wear a belt? It cuts you in half isn’t flattering at all.
• High heels would make you look 10 pounds lighter. You should always wear heels.
• Long hair makes you horse-faced. Cut it near your shoulders.
• Black is slimming. Wear more black.
• Don’t put nail polish on your nails, it looks like you have pig knuckles.
• Wow! Your cheeks are chubby. It will serve you in your old age, but now you look fat.
• White is a summer color, but not for you. You’re not nearly thin enough.

Those are just a few of the comments that I heard. A relative was once asked, after not having an audience with the king for more than five years, “What are YOU practicing to be, the fat man in the circus?” Wow.  No HelloHowAreYou/LongTimeNoSee/WhatHaveYouBeenUpTo for that subject as he stood before the king.  Nope, just a trip to the wacky mirror of the kingdom.

The mirror of the not-so-fun house still haunts what I see when I see my reflection, but thank goodness, I ran away from the circus a long, long time ago.

xo – t.

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and Third by experience, which is the bitterest.” – Confucius

“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.” – Thomas Paine

“Self-pity is never useful. It tends to distort like a fun-house mirror.” – Anne Roiphe