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Archive for June, 2008

Battle of the Bulge

Friday, June 6th, 2008

I am at war with my fat roll. I put out a contract on it, but so far, my fat roll has cunningly been able to avoid termination. I’m convinced the damn thing is sentient.

A friend of mine recently began competing in triathlons. She trained for a few months and whammo, just completed her first mini-triathlon. A half-mile swim, a fifteen-mile bike ride followed by a four-mile run. She’s dropped twenty-five pounds in three months. I was so impressed with her and so excited when she told me about her plans, I thought, hey, what a great idea. Get some endorphins, sunshine and kill the fat roll all at the same time.

But my fat roll had other plans. Much more sinister plans.

When I started training, I took it slowly. Especially the running part. I walked a brisk ten minutes, then ran for about a block. One block on, one block off. Not too much, right?

Well, somehow my fat roll traveled down to my right knee and pulled hard, my knee went out and there went the running for… a month now and counting. Thankfully, my fat roll didn’t damage me enough to stop my daily walks. But FR made the walks much more difficult.

I told my fat roll that I’d caught on to its little ploy and that it wouldn’t work. I haven’t given up the triathlon idea, just postponed it. I told it there was no way it was winning. I was in charge. Fat Roll’s days were numbered.

Taunting my fat roll turned out to be a bad idea. I pissed it off.

I was innocently grocery shopping the other day and sometime when I wasn’t looking, my fat roll threw some delicious chocolate cookies into my shopping cart. And when I got home, I found a box of ice cream sandwiches in the grocery bag. Foul beast! I cursed. Devilish fiend of blubber! I know I heard the damn thing snickering as I put the ice cream sandwiches into the freezer.

However, my fat roll did not stop at this slight. It launched an all out assault on me.

While I was gardening the other day, I bent over to pull a particularly tenacious weed and Fat Roll pushed down hard on my pants and nearly pushed them off. With both hands full, I told it to back off, I couldn’t stop and pull up my sweats right then. With a great burst of energy, Fat Roll ruthlessly shoved down on my waistband until my crack showed.

Angry, but helpless, I sighed and decided what the hell, who was looking anyway and finally got the weed out of the ground. After tossing away the weed, I pulled up my pants and gave a quick look around to make sure no one had seen my White Cliffs of (Ben) Dover. What I forgot to take into account during my assessment of butt visibility was the new building across the street. As I stared, horrified, four people looked back at me from a balcony of a condo that was for sale. It was clear they had been witnesses to my humiliation. It was also clear that the real estate agent had just lost a sale.

My fat roll loved this. Chortling gleefully, it led me to the fridge and handed me a beer. Without thinking, I drank it and several others. Again, my fat roll won the round.

Now, when I least expect it, my fat roll playfully escapes from my waistband and taunts me. “Ha, ha, here I am, you can’t kill me, no you can’t!!!” Right when I think I’m back in control, I find myself at the doughnut shop. I take my mind off my weight for one second and there’s a piece of chocolate in my mouth.

Fat Roll didn’t even exist fifteen years ago. It snuck up on me, attached itself to my middle and now, like some science fiction movie monster, it seems to grow more powerful the more I try to annihilate it. It is evil.

I know I’m supposed to love every part of myself. That I need to make friends with Fat Roll. I should nurture it and love it to death. Mother my fat roll. But I just hate it. I watch all those skinny people on TV and I yell at my fat roll. “You’re ugly, you make me look old. You say to the world, this woman is WEAK. This woman is OVERFED.”

My fat roll, however, is used to this. It has many replies for my Skinny People Are Happier diatribe. Fat Roll says, “Ignore those anorexic little morons, they’re idiots. They deny themselves the pleasure of food. They are so skinny that when the Apocalypse comes they’ll die first, you can live on your blubber for months. Besides, Frank will sleep with you no matter how fat you get.”

Since these arguments seem somewhat plausible, I listen a bit more openly to my fat roll. And that’s when FR goes in for the kill. “You are much healthier with a little extra weight on you. That third beer won’t make you fat. How could one little cookie hurt? So what if you had three beers and an ice cream sandwich, what could this bowl of cheese popcorn possibly do to you? Eat it, no worries, just eat it.” As I stuff my face, my Fat Roll bursts into maniacal laughter. “I have you now! Muahahahahaha!”

Still, I have not given up the fight. I will win. I’m not going to let some stupid chunk of blubber run roughshod over me. I’m going train for that damn triathlon, I’m going to heal my knee and I will run again. And swim. And bicycle. And my damn fat roll just better get used to it. In fact, I’m going for a walk right now. Take that, Fat Roll!

Wait. Where did this half of a beer and empty bag of barbecue potato chips come from? Damn it!

©2008, Janet Periat

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