Not Me...NO WAY!

Okay, so I just finished reading this book: How to Be Cool. It's women's fiction, about a girl who took charge of her life after college, lost 75 pounds by hard work and depriving herself of all good food, and "transformed" her life so well that she is now gives lessons to people on How to Be Cool (the name of the seminar and company).

Props to anyone who can lose 75 pounds. And keep it off. And be happy about it and continue to live life to its fullest.

But that was not this girl. "Kylie" was obsessive about her past - Vintage Kylie she called it at first, then finally admitted it was really Fat Kylie. She got defensive when she thought someone might even be hinting at her fat past. She worked out a couple hours every day, ate a very strict diet every day, and hid a LOT of stuff from her clients - including her past, the fact that her social life was nothing like she claimed it was, and that she was living with her parents after a fire destroyed her apartment building (a perfectly acceptable reason to be camping out a Mom & Dad's if you ask me, but Kylie was 100% ashamed of it, so hid it.)

Most of the time, when I read a book, I like the Main Character. But I did not like Kylie. She was ridiculously unhappy with her life, unethical in her business (lying to your clients is unethical, right?), and let her past run her present and future. I couldn't stand her. I kept expecting her to wake up, grow up, and get past it all and on with life.

She did. But I missed it. It happened without any real clarification of it happening. One day she was obsessing, the next she was eating cake.

The book itself was okay...but Kylie...aye, aye, aye. I hope..........I PRAY, that I will never be her. Yes, I want to lose the weight. Yes, I want to "re-invent" some areas of my life (coffee with George, ya know??), but I do not want to be a slave to bland diet food and the gym and a "fat" past that haunts me. What is the stinkin point of losing the weight and saving your own life, if you cannot LIVE once it's off?????

Yes, Kylie is a fictional character. But how many real life women are just like her? Desperate to keep the weight off, to the point of not even really living?

Not me! NO WAY! I vow, here and now, to live life, even in the process of taking off the weight. I will still enjoy food. I will be sensible about work outs. I will continue accepting that I am a beautiful woman no matter what size, and that the past is redeemable no matter how bad.

THAT is how to be cool...in my book anyway.