No, I’m not pregnant. I turned 62 this year, so if I were pregnant, you would have seen me on the news, some older double-chinned lady in maternity clothes. But yes, my stomach is growing. Call it late middle age or early senior citizenship belly. Or maybe it’s the ice cream and the honey buns, the sugar, the constant barrage of food I throw into my body. My metabolism is not what it used to be. As a kid, I could eat an entire stack of Oreo cookies and not gain a pound. Now if I ate a stack, I’d feel ill, and if were to eat just 3 cookies (1 serving according to the package) I will gain at least a pound.

While I never had one of those six-pack stomachs, I once had a flat belly with two vertical definition lines. I looked great in a bikini. This was 20 years ago, when I was 42 and thought that was old. (Picture me laughing out loud.) I had quit smoking at 40 and began working out at the gym, so by the time I was 42, I was toned, maybe even buff. I lifted weights, I swam, I exercised 5-6 times a week. One of the guys who worked in the gym lifted his hand to wave me over one day as I walked into the exercise room; he was talking to a woman slowly taking steps on a treadmill.

“How long have you been coming to the gym?” he asked me. I told him two years. He pointed at me, turned to the woman and said, “See, in two years, you could look like that.”

I was flattered and embarrassed and felt bad for the woman.

“Thank you,” I said and walked away. Maybe I strutted. I was kind of a jerk in my forties, a time when I came into my own in terms of attractiveness. What I know now is that the attractiveness, such that it was, doesn’t last forever. I was never a natural beauty, not even pretty. But I was acceptable looking with makeup and had a nice bod for a while.

In addition to my flat belly, I had visible muscle tone in my biceps, shoulders, triceps and back muscles. This is what a daily workout routine, along with a great metabolism and a body type that is amenable to toning, will do. When you are younger.

Now my belly flops over the waistband of my pants. I have those things at the side of my stomach people used to call “love handles.” For those younger readers who have never heard the expression, love handles are just fat that grows on the sides of your belly, hip fat. Not attractive, especially not to someone who used to have the hot, smokin’ belly. Now I’m getting sentimental.

Over the years, and especially in the last four years, I’ve become more involved with my work at an office, not as a writer, as a business analyst. Nobody outside of those who work in Project Management usually has any idea what a business analyst does. Don’t bother to look it up; it’s not important. However, my focus and my energy (as it wanes much like my metabolism) has focused on work and not exercise. I often feel exhausted at the end of the day, the product of a high level of brainwork and staring at a computer screen for hours. I’m too tired to get up early enough to make it to a gym. Yet, I’m always starving and eat like a truck driver.

Maybe you’re picturing me as a huge truck driver in a stained tee shirt that clings so tight my belly can’t be contained. Or one of those husky guys who drinks his share of beers while watching football on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays. I’m not that big, but I’m big enough. I’ve gained 30 pounds in the last 20 years. Picture it… or don’t.

Recently, I have been trying to make room for exercise. I’ve joined a new gym. I’ve begun swimming again. Soon, I will work out with a personal trainer. I’m only exercising 3 times a week, not 5 or 6, but it’s better than 0 times a week which is where I’d ended up over the last year. I can feel the muscle tone coming back into my arms and back. After a swim, I feel downright skinny (although I’m not.) I will probably never have that flat, defined stomach again, but maybe I can shrink it a bit and accept that it will never be what it was at 42. I think this will be okay.

Thank you for reading,