Know and maintain your fighting weight.

You may or may not like boxing, but it's one of the only established sports that separates its participants by size. If you weigh 130 pounds, your opponent is going to weigh the same. He may be taller or shorter, but he will weigh no more than you.

If he does, if he's a few pounds heavy at the weigh-in, he may give up a big part of his purse. As a result, boxers worry about their weight more than any woman you know. Guaranteed. They're not just thinking about how they look in this or that outfit: they're thinking about their next paycheck.

And you thought you had it bad, huh?

Not to belabor the point, but the weight classes for boxers begin at about 110 pounds and go up to 200+. In between, the divisions are labelled: flyweight, featherweight, bantamweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light-heavyweight, cruiserweight, heavyweight (with "junior" and "super" attached to some, to further delineate the poundage). It's all very precise. No cheating.

Boxers undergo maybe the most strenuous workouts of any athletes. It's why the best fighter in any weight class looks very good. He's at his peak. Did you ever see Ali at his best, about 200 pounds? A beautiful physical specimen. Sugar Ray Robinson or Sugar Ray Leonard in their primes? Smaller guys, but just as sculpted. Kenny Norton? Evander Holyfield? Impressive.

Each had found his fighting weight, and they were never better in the ring.

You have your own ideal weight, too, when you look and feel your best. Your fighting weight.

If you're a woman, you may have your eye set on 120, but that may not be reasonable, given your natural bone structure, etc. That weight might leave you weak and not able to defend yourself. You may actually feel better at 125 or 130. Or 140. Take a good look at yourself -- yes, in a full-length mirror -- and see if you like what you see. Now take your clothes off and look again. (Same for guys, but they'll never do it.) Do you think shedding x number of pounds would make you look better? How much better? And is it important to you? (If you don't have anyone to share that new sleeker body with, maybe it's not.)

If you're a guy, you may think 170 is when you felt your best, but wasn't that when you were in high school? You're an adult now. What's your ideal ADULT weight? I'm betting that if you felt your best as a teen at 170, you're probably going to be most comfortable as a grown-up at about 180 to 185. Hey, if you can get back to 170, I say go for it, but don't stress yourself in the process. It may not be your natural fighting weight. Used to be, but now you have a new one. It's up to you, but be honest about it. The only person you could possibly cheat is you.

So what is the weight at which you feel your best and, more important, that you can maintain? The weight that, if you're healthy and active, you always come back to?

Don't be fooled by the pencil-thin models. They're dying of starvation. They will have health problems later in life. You are the only judge of how big you should be, how you should look.

Now, if you tell me that you are 5'4" and weigh 200 and are happy with that, I'll have to take issue. You're WAY too big for your height. But if you're 5'6" and weigh 140 and think you need to lose ten pounds, I would say take that mirror test. If you still think you need to lose ten pounds, ask yourself: "Will the stress involved in losing those ten pounds turn me into someone I don't want to be?" And, really, what's ten pounds? Do you feel okay at your current weight? Enough energy? A positive attitude? If so, you're fine. If not, go back to the mirror.

In short, if you like the way you look and feel, then forget those ten pounds. As they say in the military, "As you were." Or as the English say, "Carry on." Think of all your peers who are 20 and 30 and 40 pounds heavier than you. Pretty yourself up and put on a dress that doesn't pinch and go out on the town, girl!

But do keep in mind the boxing divisions. Decide whether you are a featherweight or a bantamweight or a lightweight or a welterweight or a middleweight or a heavyweight or somewhere in between. And don't kill yourself trying to be something else. The annals of boxing are rife with stories of small guys who gained weight to fight in a higher class, only to have their heads handed to them. Or guys who tried coming down in weight, hoping to beat up on smaller guys, only to find that the smaller guys were fighting at their natural weights and weren't so easy to beat.

Find your fighting weight and get used to it. It's an ideal you can achieve. Hey, you've been there before, right?