A few months back I wrote
about a problem that was weighing down my legs literally and my battle with matters of the flesh, actually matters that were building my flesh. OK it has been four months since and I went for the review. I cheerfully explained to the doctor how I had fought temptation during these four months staying away from chocolates and chips and how I did not miss my daily walks and more importantly, my leg pain was a distant memory. Finally I had nothing to be ashamed of when he asked me to step on his torture instrument, the scale. What has weight to do with shame you ask? While I am not obsessed with being thin, it does feel a bit greedy and selfish when you know you are building up more fat layers than is required to keep you warm in weather like the one in Bangalore - I mean what with people living on just one meal (not even square, sometimes just a small circle of chappathi or a sphere of ragi or rice ball) in parts of this very country. And don't ask me how, but it does seem like you are somehow responsible for their deprivation.
Anyway, I stepped confidently and waited smugly for felicitations to gush out of the physician's mouth. Nothing. He went back to the table and started writing on my sheet and then went on a panegyric about my excellent blood pressure levels. But what about my weight - that for which I had made so many sacrifices- all through the diwali/christmas/ new year time, hadn't I abstained from sweets and cake and wine? And it must have helped that I was down with viral fever for a couple of weeks - people normally lose weight after these episodes, don't they? So this was the moment when my physician should be tell me how proud he was of me and pin that gold star on my file; and yet, here he was solemnly writing out the prescription. Something was wrong with the script or he didn't get it.
So I asked, "erm, what about my weight? aren't you happy?
He looked up and said 'yes, you should start doing something about it."
I looked at the sheet and there it was the number: 68.5!
4 months of torturing my flesh and all for 1.5 kg!How? what?I mean,how?
An article in the WSJ
here speaks of incentives for weight loss by monetising it. The startegy involves contracting with someone to pay them a certain amount ( quite significant) if you did not lose specified kilos in a specified period. The obligation of payment is assumed to act as an incentive to lose weight.
Well, these people who came up with the theory don't know me. I would rather pay than be under compulsion to do anything. And in any case what do you do if you are blessed with a system like mine that won't metabolise a normal diet and stash it under my skin in layers. Starve? Move to Somalia?
I think I know what to do about this - NOTHING. yes, you heard that right, Nothing.I am going to embrace this figure (yea pun intended) and feel comfortable about it - apparently this is the comfortable body weight for me as I feel good, have no discomfort in any part of my system. I eat balanced and healthy meals. I go for my walks and can climb 5 flights of stairs without panting. So I guess the ideal is not for me and my body has its own standards. Like they say, 68 is the new 58 for me now. That is it, end of story.
I may never fit into chic clothing which I anyway don't fancy and may not look like the groom's sister at my son's engagement but guess what? When there is a famine, I will have reserves to last much longer than the lean and hungry types and that is what the game is all about - survival of the fattest!
