Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for June 04, 2010

“Growing old isn’t for sissies, but it surely does beat the alternative!” My 86 year old Grandmother. Wise woman.

I swim three days a week. My suits wear out fast from the chlorine. I finally found one that is good and yesterday ordered three of them. One in my current size and two a size smaller. After losing 85 pounds i am still fitting in the same size suit I wore before. it can be very aggravating as one has no way of controlling where one loses from. I can empathize with Cathy, but at least this time I hit a good sale and on top of that I got one of them for free!

It’s called exercise Cathy… You do it to make the skin more elasticized, and then you won’t have any of the issues you’ve listed until you’re much older…

wonder why Ms Guiswite draws Cathy so small these days; she used to be about half the size of the panels but she and her fellow characters have shurnk to less than a third of a panel lately

Sounds like the same rationalization for tanning. Maybe you think you look better, but it’s so unhealthy.

@madampresiden12 – that’s fantastic! It sounds like you’ve lost the fat and gained muscle, so your size hasn’t gotten much better, but you’re so much more healthy. :-)

I just WISH I could find my other 2 mesh swim suits. I put them away last year when cool weather arrived and now I really need them. I hate to buy more when I know they’re somewhere in the house, but if I step out to swim more than once a day…

Actually, Lightenup, muscle weighs much more than fat, and takes up less room, so by your logic, she would have stayed the same weight, but dropped several sizes.

Madampresiden12–keep at it! Remember that swimsuits are made of material meant to stretch, so maybe the fabric is just contracting along with you.

NOTINKSANYMORE -

muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound of muscle weighs 16 oz as does a pound of fat. Muscle does take “less room” so gaining muscle is what can make you look like you weigh less when you actually weigh the same.

I’m sure that what notinksanymore meant was that muscle weighs more than fat BY VOLUME. Obviously a pound of anything weighs the same as a pound of anything else, DUH!

You may have your pound of flesh… but not one ounce - not one DROP - of blood.

-the judge, Merchant of Venice.

Muscle weighs slightly more for its volume than fat does. It’s more solid and less water … but not a whole lot more.

That’s why fat people float slightly faster and slightly higher, and why if your limbs are muscular but your torso is not, your limbs tend to sink when you try to “do a float” motionlessly.

I doubt the muscle-weight differential, even of the torso, would make a one-size difference in what suit fits.

But I think madampresiden12 is great! With her attitude and persistence, the world would be a lot healthier.

Too bad that life is “aggravating” anyway - but I’d rather be around healthy people who feel aggravated than unhealthy people who also do.

However, I happen to believe that, once one is on the road to fitness, the distribution of any remaining fat will tend to work itself out eventually. For example, as using the “core” muscles becomes easier due to weight loss, energy and flexibility (not necessarily Pilates, but just plain using the body), the core will get more exercise naturally just from the more natural, whole-self way of moving in every daily activity.

Just thinking about it makes me feel encouraged to do more.

Did any of you people laugh at the comic? I can’t believe how seriously you’re taking this.

Alison, I might have laughed if I weren’t almost 40 and facing that. It IS true and such funny in a way, but more sad for me.

The sad thing is that we spend enough time staring at our imperfections (and worse yet, at the imperfections of others) that we even notice this stuff, thus dooming ourselves to misery.

masnadies: Which is why I’ve decided to not care anymore what people think about me… what matters is how I feel about myself and how I take care of myself… It just sucks that it took so long to realize all that…

It should read “nostalgic for youth” not fat. But I laughed anyways. Exercise has no effect whatsoever on stretched-out collagen. And old skin does get worse…so sad, but true. It’s only downhill from here on out.;-)

You’re not facing crepey, droopey, or wrinkly skin at 40 – it didn’t hit me or most of my friends until past 60 and I’ve had radiation and a whole host of other nasty treatments. If you exercise at all, use moisturizer and eat decently, your skin will stay fine well into your 50s. Stop worrying.

@madam…, a long time ago when I was doing a lot of swimming, I lost weight but not that much, but I went down several sizes in clothing - I think it was from size 14 to size 10. And I felt fantastic!

Now, not having exercised for a long time, I gained a lot of weight (we won’t discuss what size I am now at all), and the solution is to exercise as far as I can see, because when I was exercising I was less hungry and didn’t eat so much.

But there’s always a catch. Before I can exercise, I have to first see a physiotherapist, and get some treatments for my back. It hurts very badly, and this is why I don’t exercise.

Wish me luck! I’ll see a physio when I get a “round tuit” (if anybody knows that story).