Baby Weight.

In this photo, I thought my arm looked like a ham hock.

When I first read My Post Baby Body is Ruining My Marriage on Babble yesterday, I was all “YEAH GIRL, I HEAR YOU.”

But then I was, like, NO.

I have done some thinking since 36 hours ago and have come to some conclusions.

My ideal body is 30 pounds lighter and six inches taller and has cooperative hair and a non-oily T-zone.

My post-baby body is certainly a thing I think about, because I would very much like to have a different body. In theory. And that theoretical “better body” is one I would ideally obtain without doing anything awkwardly aerobic, and without giving up carbs. Or cheese. Or drinking. Or fried meats.

We don’t get long on this planet, and I do not believe in abstinence; it is my singular goal to do die with this body completely worn out from overuse. I want to do every single fun thing possible with my maybe-80 (probably 70) years, and fun for me is eating and drinking and dancing and laughing and wearing stretchy fabrics and I can’t do any of those things with the reckless abandon I deserve to if I am thinking all the time about how lumpy my stomach looks since my ab muscles buried themselves in accumulated butterfat or how my thighs look when I forget myself and stand with my knees pushed back.

I exercise; I do. I walk or bike between five and ten kilometers a day, and I haul a 30-pound toddler around just about everywhere since he decided he will no longer submit to being strapped into a stroller. I eat well – our dinners are simple, home-cooked meals of whole foods most of the time; I eat a lot of lentils and kale (and I like them!), but if someone’s going to leave fried chicken just laying around in my line of sight, I’m going to get all the way into it.

I eat well, and I exercise, but my “ideal” weight is 30 pounds away. What am I prepared to do to lose those 30 pounds? Not much more than I’m doing right now.

My body will never be perfect.

During the last three months of grade 12, I ate McDonald’s every day to fit into my grad dress.

For two years before I realized I looked a bit trashy by even my standards, I wore a size 2 Spandex tube as a dress.

In his break-up letter, an ex-boyfriend confessed that once I had “ballooned” up to a size 6, I was no longer desirable – I shrugged it off then, because obviously that one was a dick.

When the elderly woman at Shopper’s reminded me – while my baby was still facing inward in his Bjorn – that I could begin working off the baby weight any time now, I admired her audacity (and figured she was also a dick).

My thighs rub together whether I weigh 110 pounds or 160.

When someone on Facebook shared our Grade 7 class photo, I picked myself out immediately by the arms I have always thought looked like ham hocks.

I’m the little blonde in the red shirt, four in from the left in the back.

The worst things I have ever internalized about my body came from me – things I thought up all on my own.

What is the sense in feeling that way if I am not going to do anything about it? Why feel guilty about something I ultimately don’t even really care about? In the right dress with a pair of Spanx and a good bra, I feel like Nigella Lawson.

My ideal body is 30 pounds lighter and six inches taller and has cooperative hair and a non-oily T-zone. If my ideal body is 75% unattainable, then why not just live in and enjoy the one I’ve got right now? Maybe I’ll lose 30 pounds, someday, if I have time for it or if cheese gets unaffordable around the time that my liver can no longer process alcohol. But I am not going to let my post-baby body ruin my post-baby life.

In the right dress with a pair of Spanx and a good bra, I feel like Nigella Lawson.

Sometimes I am still going to feel like a chubby little Hobbit with hams for arms, but I only wear a swimsuit four or five times per year so whatever. Loving my food and hating my body are at odds with each other and I do not have time for this nonsense any longer and food wins.

And not that it matters, but no man in the history of me strutting down Broadway has ever offered anything but enthusiasm for what I’ve always – even skinny – thought of as my big, fat ass.