I’m fat but don’t fix me: Editor’s Note

I was dumbfounded with the results of a reader survey on our Web site last week.

We asked, “Have you ever successfully completed a diet?”

Astoundingly (at least to me) 85 percent of respondents said they had, in fact, done so.

For myself, I suppose the same could be said: I have successfully lost a total of 400 pounds.

Yes, it’s true.

I’ve lost the same 5 pounds 80 times.

And yes, 400 pounds later, I am still dreading the thought of a bathing suit.

Before those of you who own gyms or weight-loss programs start spamming me, I’ll say it now: this column is not for you.

It is for the rest of us fighting the battle of the bulge, and who are managing somehow to live with ourselves, perfect or not. In other words, I’m fat, but I’m not asking you to fix me.

I just want to share a few things that happened on the way to the fridge.

Last week, for instance, I tried a television fitness routine to get my blood pumping.

For a half hour my daughter (who is gorgeous and not fat) and I attempted to keep up with a video fitness program. It featured two cadaverish women jumping up and down and screaming, occasionally throwing jabs at the camera. They took us through a series of maneuvers complex enough for a Cirque du Soleil act. Then they screamed that now we must relax. This was a good thing, as I was still on my hands and knees, soaked with sweat, not feeling like circus material.

At that point, my dog, parked on the couch, determined I had become a threat. I’m not certain if my panting posture generated a “kill” response, but I spent the rest of the video thwarting off her Cujo-like attempts to lunge at my face. If I had collapsed and died at that point, I would have been a corpse without a nose.

Eventually, with the growling dog now attached to my pants leg, I lay prone on the couch, marveling at my instructors’ capacity for lunges and screaming.

But wait, there’s more.

We have a gym at my apartment complex, which has several stair-stepping machines in it. Prior to the recent bad weather, I had been running around a muddy field at a nearby school (my growling dog in hot pursuit). But with the onset of snow, I gave one of our stair steppers a try.

It immediately asked my weight in kilograms, for which I took a wild guess: 500.

With a lot of beeping, the machine started and I soon realized it was slowly bending my knees backward, in the same manner that a flamingo or ostrich might walk. I’m not sure if it was because it thought I really weighed 500 kilograms (which I’ve since learned is about 1,100 pounds) or what. I just knew I would be without kneecaps in another nano-second.

Another key part of weight loss is calorie intake. I have always been a big fan of calories, especially when they are buried in ice cream, chocolate, cheese, and the like. Calories rapidly lose their glow when you have to extract them from a Brussels sprout or a pepper – anything with leaves attached, or which must be dug up with a shovel.

But I am trying, as best I can, to part ways with my favorite calories. It’s been a difficult time, with hard feelings on both sides.

Me, the tears filling my eyes as I empty out my fridge; and them, the pudding, cookies and cake, giving me the come-hither look from the garbage can where I’ve so tenderly placed them.

Meanwhile, bags of carrots, lettuce and squash glare at me from the depths of my fridge, defying me to cook them. This will truly be an arranged marriage.

As a friend of mine once wondered, “why is it that I’ll crave a bag of Cheetos, but never a bag of carrots?”

The answer: We were simply born to suffer.