What stands out in Jada Pinkett Smith’s recent image above versus her November one below is the reality that both are beautiful. In embracing her 8-10 pound weight gain, the 42-year-old actress hardly went to hell in a handbastet.

“I think I will keep it,” she posted on her Facebook page, adding “Here’s to loving our bodies by our own standards.”

I so concur. In my case, a key reason for my own scaled down presence at AOC is my need to spend an hour each day — at a minimum — in the gym. Of course, there are several other key factors driving this pause, but regaining my old body is a core one.

By my own standards, I must lose another 15-20 pounds. This isn’t as daunting as it seems, with 35 gone already over the last two years. After finding and keeping my best physical self in 2003/4, a crippling gym injury in 2009 followed by a horrific fall in 2011 left me on a cane for 18 months and suffering a huge weight gain.

Depressed but determined, I began my own road to recovery in July 2011. Now I’m in the home stretch with my injury almost fully healed thanks — not to my doctor — but to my dearest friend and masseuse Iman. Week by week we ripped apart scar tissue while enhancing range of motion and flexibility in my right leg. The process has been very painful — as have my sessions in the gym — but I’m so much better.

The biggest change I see in Jada is in her face. Her sunken cheeks are fuller. In my case, I’m determined to regain the body I love most and worked so hard to create a decade ago. A declining scale tally and increased muscle and mobiity are the only acceptable reads for me until I reach my former size eight self. At 5’8”, that hardly makes me svelte. In my playbook, it does make me Smart Sensuality sexy — and healthy. ~ Anne