So, I Think I'm Gonna Lose Weight...

I admit I am fat. If I divide the number of pounds by the years I have worked at a desk, it averages to four pounds a year exactly. Sad. I could have easily lost four pounds, repeatedly, and never faced the humiliation as being one of the lazy, undisciplined health liabilities currently being blamed for the health care cost crisis in America - well, fat people like me, and President Obama, and Kathleen Sibelius are blamed. Of course, I did not get fat over all that time. It was after I turned forty that the pounds started packing on. That was when my grandmother's genes kicked in and started turning 200 calories of food into ten goddamned pounds of body fat within fifteen minutes of ingestion, and the warranty on my knees expired.

It is not fun being fat. It is embarrassing when the corporation I work for starts the anti-drug, anti-tobacco, anti-fat campaigns as if fat is a moral failing or an addiction or some other choice you only have to make once. It is embarrassing when people think I am fat because I am simply lazy and have no self control. It is true that I could "watch what I eat" and eventually lose weight. But I am here to tell you that it is NOT easy to lose weight. No human being on this planet wants to be fat (except Sumo wrestlers). If it were easy to lose weight, only Sumos would be fat.

Four years ago, I woke up one morning with an absolute iron clad will power to "do something about my weight". I started writing down the calories of every bite of food I ingested, limiting myself to 1500 calories a day. I stuck to it for almost six months and lost thirty pounds. But I was hungry the entire time. It must be what junkies feel like when they give up heroin - constantly longing for something that shadows all waking and sleeping moments. A year after I stopped smoking I no longer craved a cigarette. A human being cannot stop eating, or reach a point where she no longer craves food. Well, a human being will reach that point - the scientific name of that physical condition is death, Latin for Not Hungry.

After those hard-fought 30 pounds dropped, I woke up one morning to find the iron clad determination had mysteriously vanished. I simply could not continue eating lettuce with a side of air. I began to eat normally and all those hard lost pounds came thundering back, smiling knowingly at me, "We know you missed us!"

So, I sucked it up and bought bigger clothes. The hell with it.

Until I decided to try again, this time with diet and exercise. So, I joined an old lady gym, and go three or four times a week to exercise with the other old ladies, and when I say "old ladies", I mean elderly women. (I even bought an exercise outfit, probably the ugliest outfit in the world, but believe me, fat people are not vain.) I feel like an Olympic athlete when I am working out beside an eighty year old woman. The evil voices in my head say things like "Yeah, bitch, you wish you could do ten leg pumps as quickly as this!" or "Look at that old woman struggling to lift the bar on that machine! HA HA HA HA HA!"

Then a woman my age comes in, someone who is in good physical shape, with dyed hair and lycra exercise pants showing off her tight old rear end, and the evil voices in my head say things like, "Yeah, bitch, you wish your face wasn't all wrinkled up" or "I'll bet she only wears a 36 B cup bra" because you know, my face, being fat, isn't all wrinkled up yet, and Lord knows I do have a set of breasts.

Luckily, those evil voices are just fleeting thoughts in my head, and I do not speak them aloud, at least I do not think I am. I hope I am not saying anything like that to any of those nice women minding their own business beside me in the gym. If I were saying horrible things, I would not be allowed to come back. When I left tonight, the proprietor said "See you tomorrow!" So far, so good.

For three months I have been struggling to eat 1500 calories a day, and I have been going to the gym three or four times a week. I have lost a whopping 4 pounds - all of it from my breasts, apparently. I have not lost any inches either. I have gained inches because, I guess, I am getting muscular beneath the blubber. Working out gives me an appetite. The last couple of weeks I have been cheating on the calories. I am dangerously close to becoming a Sumo wrestler.