Christine O'Connor finds returning to fitness is a matter of balance.
I clearly remember a scorching hot summer's afternoon of 1989.
I was standing in front of my Mum's dresser mirror, silently staring at my figure. I wore a white ankle-length cotton sun-frock.
The mirror reflected my boyfriend pausing at the doorway of the bedroom.
''You look like the side of a house,'' he observed.
Mum entered the room. She hugged my unborn daughter and me and told me not to cry, insisting that I looked lovely.
She added that she would be having stern words to that little ''stick insect'', a name we referred to often over the coming years.
Good ol' Mum.
Her genetics have firmly hung themselves on my frame. My thighs are courtesy of the Braddick side of the family tree; complete with hip-hugging baby koala's.
I don't recall my Mum being fat, and yet I clearly remember her dieting, trying to get those hips and thighs to a size she found acceptable.
Nana Fan, Mum's Mum, would never diet, or exercise, not that I witnessed. In fact, the opposite was true. She ate heartily, and exercise came courtesy of laborious domestic duties and raising six lively children.
Nana was loveable exactly the way she was.
She never left a thing on her plate, and was often seen picking away at leftovers ... anybody's (regrettably, that habit has also passed down through the generations).
My Nana would say she was ''heavy boned'', and would insist that your body was going to be how it was going to be, and that was that!
To a certain extent maybe, but if I woke up tomorrow to the news that my body type, precisely how it appears at the moment, had been voted the world's most desirable (interrupted by breaking news that pigs were seen flying over the Taieri Plain), would I still work out?
I can answer honestly, yes.
I would also continue to make efforts to lead a balanced lifestyle and make better choices.
I would continue to seek the rewards from a challenging work out with my new friends at Let's Go Fitness as often as possible.
And yes Nana, I would continue to eat my greens.
• Follow Christine's return to fitness here in The Weekend Mix
