Weird Al Yankovic (re: "I'm Fat")

I have discovered that I am fat. This was not an overnight sensation, but last night I realized that the mirror ain’t lyin.

I wore something that turned out to be seriously unflattering last night. I caught a look at my butt in the mirror, and, gasp! It was huge! I turned this way and that to see if any view made my wide load look any smaller, and, no, it didn’t. Not at all. In fact, it seemed to be mocking me and looked larger every time I shifted my perspective.

I turned from looking at my enormous ass to look at my profile in the mirror. Counterbalancing the rear, my belly looked huge and distended. No wonder people in Chicago who saw me infrequently asked me if I were pregnant: I looked more like a house every time they saw me.

Five pounds here, ten pounds there: I climbed the weight to height ratio in the stratosphere. I typed in my data in the Mayo Clinic health calculator, and I’m obese. I tried another calculator, and it too said I was obese.

WTF? Why did I let this happen to me? I remember all the brownies and the cookie dough and the carrot cake, and now I think, “what the hell was I doing to myself?” I don’t know. I was just so unhappy that sugar was the only thing that made it feel better, even if it were just a temporary release.

As one of my doctors glibly stated, “It’s a lot easier to put it on than it is to take it off.” I let that be my mantra for a while, my excuse. “Oh well, if it’s so hard to do, then I’ll just live like this.”

But living like this led to more brownies and more ice cream, and now I have to put the brakes on it all. My regular breakfast of cereal and coffee. Lunch is now salad with some protein and an orange. Dinner is home cooked lean meat. Snacks are yogurt and popcorn.

“Diet.” What does that mean? The food you eat, the dining habits you break, the grueling trek up the stair climber? I don’t want to drink the Weight Watcher’s Koolaid, but my friend is right: “diet” is a mean word with all its connotations of deprivation. “Lifestyle change” is the right combo. I am remembering not to order all that bacon and sausage at IHOP. I am going to eat spinach omelets. I am going to get protein from avocados and olives. I am going to learn to eat sardines.

I don’t own a scale. Presumably I’m “lifestyle changing” by the way my pants fit. Lemme tell ya, they ain’t no better yet.

I’m a fattie boombalattie. Until Sunday, I had fat pride. “This is my body, deal with it.” I don’t know what happened to my ass in that mirror on Sunday night, but my body composition is totally transformed: this is not how I want to be. I don’t want to look pregnant forever.

And husband? He makes fun of fat people when we’re out in public. When will that be me? When will he look at me and say, “Jeez, put down that cupcake already”? I don’t want my belly to see that day.