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I guess it could be worse.
Or could have been worse.
“Could be” would imply I’m still putting on pandemic pounds, that it’s an ongoing process, but that would be me setting myself up for failure. Those 7 pounds I’ve added since March 2020, when I began this ridiculous temporary “working from home” shtick, are not in process. They are in reversal, baby!
And really, aren’t all battles with the waistline ultimately an expression of your mental state of preparedness and assumption? If you can’t accurately articulate your passive voice, the one that expresses the real state of your mind, you will not meet your external voice’s empty promises about that body utopia fable that involves the losing weight “this time” mantra.
I speak from experience.
I have never been obese in my life, but I experienced a period of weight gain that culminated in 2014 when I was deeply ensconced in the unseemly “overweight” category you’ll find mocking from most online BMI calculators. Physically, I’m an ectomorph which is the worst thing for a man who fancies himself muscular. It was this very muscularity I strove for that caused me to start shoveling calories down my gullet years ago. All it did was give my skinny ass a massive paunch and obscenely fat neck and face. But it was also this ectomorphic curse that prevented me from scaling the oh-so-American obese level: my body is nearly incapable of being obese by virtue of my skinny wrists and pencil legs. That’s not to say I didn’t try.
Anyhow, in the Fall of 2014 I finally came to my senses. This muscle thing wasn’t doing it for me. I was gaining lots of fat and not enough muscle to justify it. I could deadlift impressive numbers and my bench press was not bad, but I couldn’t tie my shoes without breathless exertion and my belt was in a perpetual state of distension. Both my mother and my girlfriend made “observations” about my weight separately and independently of each other. I was getting fat, but I was blind to it so gradual was my self-inflicted condition. One Thursday evening, I finally committed myself to losing weight. Seriously, and really. I vowed to continue lifting weights, but for tone and strength, not for the buff illusion. Scrawny guys like me must acquiesce to the cruel limits of life.
Over the span of almost a year, I lost 30% of my body weight. I reached a stasis of “normal” weight, but I was a stone’s throw from the cut-off point from that famished category where you’re Ethiopian by choice, or skeletal by mental. Acquaintances who didn’t know me any better thought I was sick. I warded off that 30% glob of my discarded weight for about 5 years. I maintained my new weight through the trying times of sugary and fried temptations that flooded my existence through getting married, through parties and milestone events, through a food-heavy trip to New England; my weight never deviated more than 1 or 2 pounds, but I always found my way quickly back to the north star of my fixed weight. There was no secret, no magic bullet. I simply staved off the pounds with willpower and resistance. If you turn down food frequently enough, you become empowered. The practice of saying “no” becomes a habit, a superpower which brings you the power of pride and accomplishment. The ability to not succumb to the gluttony that everyone else does in today’s hedonistic wasteland distinguishes you. People ask you how you did it and you answer, “I stopped eating a lot.” The crestfallen look on their faces says it all. Everyone wants the secret, but it scares them off. They are looking for some esoteric formula, a cognitive twist they never thought of, but it’s really the simplest riddle in the book.
Learn to co-exist with hunger. That’s it.
Hunger is not your enemy. Especially in today’s high-tech scheme of pampered laziness, I promise you, hunger is not your enemy nor is it dangerous. People don’t want to hear that.
Until pandemic.
Damned pandemic.
First, it was a pound. Then maybe 2 more. They didn’t go away like they might have a year previous. Frustrated, I gave the scale a break because I was not used to this rigmarole of increasing poundage. I wanted no part of it. I had miraculously maintained my weight’s equilibrium for 5 years and I felt invincible. Then I braved the scale again, and this time it was about 2 more pounds. A few weeks later, in a final gluttonous flourish, I Paid the scale one more visit. Two more pounds. I’d gained 7 pounds, in total, since the rise of COVID. Working from home was a terrible lifestyle habit. My snacking instinct was unencumbered here. A quick grab of something (even healthy things rich in calories like nuts or sweet potatoes) was trampling over my sense of dietary control. My weakness was subtly padding the number on my scale, it was contributing a creeping, invisible linear distance to my waistline. The scale’s incremental nudges in a northern direction were alarming but the slow procession of time vanquished the urgency.
It is weight creep. You witness increments, but you do not comprehend the compilation and ensuing growth and proliferation that burrows into your reality like a caloric boil.
Seven pounds. It could have been worse.
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