Some of us struggle with our weight. We count our daily calories or we count our daily steps — or both. We try every diet plan or exercise regimen we hear about — but nothing works.
So, to avoid acknowledging our lack of success in the weight-loss stakes, we decide to avoid acknowledging our existence and quicken our steps as we pass a mirror, duck each time a camera clicks, and delete every photograph in which our breadth is greater than our height.
We enviously eye those who seem to remain the same size from age 16 to 66 and wonder what they eat and what they do to stay that way. (It would probably be more appropriate to inquire what they DON’T eat, but we don’t do that, because we want to avoid thinking about our own frequent indulgences.)
Instead, ignoring our own body-type, we stick a picture of a svelte supermodel with endless legs on our walls and set ourselves an unattainable goal as we run and jump and walk and cycle and bend and stretch.
We collect every conceivable article on diet and exercise — stubbornly following that wonderful promise of “Thin Thighs in 30 Days” for a good 30 years before we finally admit that perhaps our chinar-tree-trunk limbs are better directed towards enjoyable treks and hikes and walkathons instead of the impossible ramp or runway!
And while we are cutting out all those articles from newspapers and magazines, we also cut back on sugar in our tea and coffee, we cut down on our carbohydrate intake, we cut out oil — we all but cut out bits of ourselves so that we can finally climb onto the weighing scales — but lo and behold, we stay stocky and solid-limbed with nary an ounce of difference from where we had started out!
OK, let’s be honest about it: there is a difference from where we had started out. For, as we cut back on each item on the food chart that was supposedly contributing to our problems of size, we were bringing in other items we hadn’t tried before. Thus, refined sugar in a bowl didn’t appear on our table, but delicious dark chocolate filled with calories did. Carbs were taken off the plate — and replaced by a second and a third serving of bodybuilding protein.
As for that oil, it stayed at the same level in the bottle beside the stove — while everything was sautéed in a “thin wedge” of butter.
“Thin wedge?”
I didn’t even realise it was an oxymoron, and naturally, when it came to choosing between “thin” and “wedge” for butter, you can guess which word and therefore which action with the butter knife won!
For those of us who live with spouses whose waistlines seem to contract with every move they make, while ours seems to roll outwards independently of the rest of our bodies, there is perhaps a glimmer of comfort to be gleaned from advice like, ‘Keep fit; don’t worry about a little extra fat,’ ‘We are all built differently,’ ‘Love your body,’ etc.
(Love yourself — sure. It’s getting easier with age, even though I still have a hard time loving the person in the mirror!
Embrace the unique YOU — I try, but it is easier said than done, given limited arm span and almost unlimited girth.)
But now, as another year of fruitlessly fighting fat comes to a close, I decide it is time to be kind to myself and follow those “feel good” instructions: and I bounce out of bed in the morning and trundle along to the kitchen for coffee with full-cream milk to “keep my bones strong”.
I ignore a few creaks and stretch and bend without breaking anything or getting stuck — and I tell myself I’m in great shape!
So what if that shape is a sphere?
— Cheryl Rao is a writer based in India
