Sibling Rivalry

My sister is about four years older than I am, and she's turned out to be a wonderful person. She was a pain in the neck as we were growing up, but then again, so was I, so I suppose we deserved eachother.

She was the knees and elbows sister, while I was the muscular one. My torso is long, her arms and legs are long. But the fact remains, unlike me, she has never really been overweight. She has beefed up by ten or fifteen pounds here and there over the years, but she's never hit the "obese" category on the charts as I have.

So the conversation the two of us had the other day irked me a little. And it's the shallow part of me that was annoyed. Isn't that usually the case? Anyway, her big news was that she is working with a neighbor of hers who is a personal trainer. I've met this neighbor, and when I met her she was quite thin. My sister told me she was impressed by her neighbor's weight loss (what more could she have lost other than skin and bone?) and by her nutrition philosophy.

What's that philosophy? Pretty much exactly what mine is, and what I recommended to my sister over two months ago when she told me she was frustrated with her weight. Did she listen? Nope. Perhaps a person must be a size zero to carry any credibility in my sister's eyes. I suppose it makes sense.

Big sis' went on to tell me that she has been dropping weight like crazy, (I believe that's a direct quote)and that her goal is to get down to 18% fat. For those of you who trouble yourselves with body fat % charts, that's pretty low for a woman. A woman who is about to turn 40...

I know my irritation stems from jealousy. I've been jealous of my sister's lack of true struggle with eating for as long as I can remember. I'm not jealous of her body. I'm not jealous of her marriage. I prefer my life, actually. So I must realize, that having her (relative lack of) food struggle comes along with every other part of her life. Right?

So when she calls to tell me that she's hit her goal weight, and that she did it without struggling with the regular desire to binge, I hope to have grown enough to be genuinely happy for her.