The 30s Trauma

I met up with a good friend who flew in from Hong Kong last week. Ping has been one of those people I’ve known for a long time now (10 years now).
She used to be the girlfriend of a friend I knew so basically I knew her boyfriend first. But when their relationship took a turn for the worse, I still remained close to her. We’ve been keeping in touch every now and then online and whenever she’s back in Malaysia (she worked in Xiamen for a few years and now she is in HK).
We’re both the same age (which is 33) and we have lots in common. Both of us adore books. Both of us adore eating. And both of us now bitch about growing old.
Really.
She was a swimmer/lifeguard when we were both in USM ages ago. She was always trim and fit. When we now meet, she now turns to me worriedly and tells me she’s gone down the road of flab and cellullite.
Nic calls it the Muffin Syndrome where one’s excess tummy sort of spills out of the top of your jeans (like how muffins look like in the bakery). I call it the Michelin man look. You know, the excess rolls of fat.
Ping who admits she never quite bothered with cellulite in her younger years is now aghast that she’s now an owner of such royal unsightliness. We’re so close that she lifts her Nike t-shirt so that she can show me the excess flab around her midriff. In a way, she’s both embarrassed and awed.
That’s the 30s trauma I told her. Look at me. I still get freaked out when I find white hair on my head. I rush for the nearest mirror and attempt to pull them all out. Nic stands there, arms crossed, not offering a whit of support (like helping me pull the hairs) but states that the more I pull, the more they’ll grow.
Oh whatever. But the satisfaction is that I get rid of the ugly white strands while I can.
I emphatise with Ping. Cause it’s not that I don’t have a flabby midriff either. I do. That comes from the slowdown of the metabolic processes once we gals hit our 30s. I was always nicely thin so much so that aunts and uncles would chide my parents for not feeding me. And now, now I have a midriff so appalling that I need to do something about it. And I have Hips (with a capital H) which together with my midsection makes me look pear-shaped.
Not good.
I tell Ping that the only way to get out of this awful situation is to focus on reducing the flab. That means doing ab crunches. Painful but necessary. It’s rumoured that Britney (ya, that blonde one) used to do like 100s of those to get her superfit abs – the very ones you see in her music videos. (Although as you can see in her recent VMA showing, Brit the one who has embraced motherhood does not quite have the same abs as the Brit who was once single and carefree. Her waist has thickened considerably!)
While I am not that ambitious, I still want to stop this flab from spreading. Hence, the religious ab exercises every day. I can see the results and that’s why I heartily recommend anyone who has a hefty midriff to find at least 10 minutes each day to do some serious abdomen exercises. I got myself a VCD (For Fabulous Abs and Butt) just so I could discipline myself into doing something.
I told Ping to just zoom into her problem areas and find a fix.
Me…I have to follow my own advice and take my own medicine too.
Do you have the 30s trauma too? What’s your angst?
Update: Anita Roddick of The Body Shop has passed away! It was such a shock. Yes, despite my griping about the Malaysian Body Shops, I still have much admiration for Miss Roddick. The world will surely miss her strong, vocal presence!