Bodies of All Types

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a picture of a girl and a truck together where she's not dressed skanky or a Size 2?
Thanks to this site for the cute picture!

We're a truck family. I'm only 5'5", and I get claustrophobic in traffic, so I prefer a truck because I can see over other vehicles. It's also just the kind of girl I am. I like tools and know how to use 'em!

My very first "car" was a 1981 Chevy Blazer. I loved that truck more than life itself. It was two-tone blue with one primered fender when I bought it, and my birthday gift to myself that year was to have it painted. When the ex and I lived in Salt Lake, the engine blew. He talked me into selling it rather than repairing it, and I always regretted that decision.

I swore one day, I would have the money to buy another one, and I would even have it painted the same color.

Mine looked like this, only not that tall, and it was blue.

Years passed, and while the ex drove our beautiful pickup every day, I was continually talked into buying cars. (I think it always bothered him that I was the kind of girl who was into trucks. He wanted a more submissive, little sedan kind of girl.) We replaced my blazer with a 1988 Acura Legend. I do have to admit I did kind of enjoy driving that car. It had a sunroof and was a little sporty, but it still had that awful problem of giving me serious claustrophobia (especially on Salt Lake freeways!).

Mine looked just like this one

We sold that one before moving back to Montana. There, I had the joy of being pushed into buying a 1989 Dodge Caravan. Not only was it a mini-van (something I swore I would NEVER drive), but it was the color of dirt. It also had an annoying engine problem that would cause it to completely overheat when sitting at an idle.

Ain't it a pretty site?? (Excuse me while I go throw up.)

When we tired of that one's issues, this time he talked me into a 90's model (totally forget what year it was) Dodge Stratus. Or as I called it, the Dodge Stratus POS Lemon. It was evil, and no mechanic could ever figure out what was wrong with it. I hated that car after about the first week.

You'd never know evil lurked beneath such a mild exterior.

*None of the above images are pictures of my actual cars. I got them off the internet. I refused to take pictures of those ugly things.

So when Surfer Pirate and I first started dating, I had just traded in the Lemon for a 2002 Chevy Silverado. I was in heaven having a truck again! Surfer Pirate's Mitsubishi Montero had just died, and he enjoyed driving my truck as much as I did.

Shortly after we got married, I was driving to work one morning, and was stunned to find a Blazer on the side of the road that was almost the same color as my old one! And better yet, it had a For Sale sign in the window!!! We really did need a second vehicle, and this one was a dream come true! We borrowed the money from my parents, and bought it. As soon as it was safely home in my own driveway, I actually hugged it. (Not kidding, I really did.) It was like I finally got my old friend back - only this time, it was even better because it was a little newer and had a big beefy grill on the front.

So now the battle was on to decide who got to drive which vehicle.

Originally, Surfer Pirate wanted the blazer, and he set about covering it with window stickers of things he liked. But then he would decide he wanted the pickup, and covered THOSE windows. I finally got fed up, and told him he needed to pick one and stick with it. I loved both trucks and didn't care which one he wanted to be "his", but I needed to have one that was mine to do with as I pleased.

He settled on the pickup, and I happily went out and took all the stickers off the blazer that I didn't like.

This is one of the ones I kept:

I debated about it at first. It seems like the kind of thing that would be on a man's truck, not a woman's. But I realized that I related to her. She's a tough girl with attitude (the little designs on the "fishnet" are actually dirtbikes). And she's curvy like me. So she stays.


Now...

the whole first part of this entry was not what I originally intended to write.

This entry is actually about self-image, and I was using the girl on my blazer as an example. The rest of it just sort of a tangent.

Welcome to the weird way my mind works.

Anyway.

I haven't been very happy with how I look lately. I think I mentioned before that I'd put on a lot of weight during my first marriage because I was so unhappy. I lost a bunch after the ex left, but I put it all back on with the stresses that life threw at me over the last few years. Then, I got pregnant with Pirate Baby. Morning sickness took some of the weight off, so by the time it was all said and done, I'd only gained 12 pounds in my pregnancy. Which I promptly took back off.

Until I realized last month that I'd put 5 more pounds back on.

I noticed I'd gone back to my bad habit of giving in to all my sugar cravings late at night. I wasn't exercising, and I was eating WAY too much during the day. Something had to change NOW.

The other really important thing about this is that I have a daughter. Pirate Munchkin is 7, and pays attention to everything. I don't want her to hear me say "I'm on a diet because I'm too fat." Instead, I've been telling her that mom needs to be healthier. She's picked up some terms from other girls that I'm not happy about. The child told me one day that she doesn't like how fat her legs are. I told her that her legs are just right for her age, that she's healthy and pretty. Seven is FAR too young to have bad body images, and I am not going to add to what she's already having to hear other girls say at school. (For the record, she is tall and thin - not even what could be termed as chubby.)

*Edited to add: I don't think anyone has been calling Pirate Munchkin fat. I think she's been hearing other girls say that about themselves, and she's repeating what she's hearing.

I'm not a dieter. Every time I've been on a diet in my life, I put the weight right back on as soon as I went off it. So I knew that wasn't the answer for me. But I knew better than to do what I was doing. I cut back on portion sizes, tried to make better snack choices, and the biggest key was figuring out WHY I crave so much junk food late at night (I'll spare you the drama, but I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner). I'm not eliminating anything from my diet. If I want ice cream, I have it - just a (much) smaller portion than I was having before. If I want cookies, I let myself have a couple - I just don't let myself have 10 or 26. And I started making exercise a regular part of my day. I try to walk every morning, and then I try to do another form of exercise sometime during the day. (My favorites are yoga and bellydancing.)

I started actively working on getting healthier exactly one month ago, and in that time, I've taken off 2 pounds and 3 1/2 inches! I've given up my old goal, realizing it's really not necessary or realistic. (I used to always aim for the size I was when I got married for the first time back in 1997. But I've realized that my waist, while super-tiny back then, was disproportionate to the rest of my body. I've upped my original goal by about 10 pounds.) It's going to take a lot of time to get where I want to be, but that's okay. It basically took me 6 years to put it all on in the first place, I'm okay with it taking a year or two to get back there.

Now if you'll excuse me, there is a serious issue at my house. We don't have any cookies.

Most of them will go in the freezer for another time, but I will have some today.