Note: I’m a columnist for the Reader Weekly, an alt-weekly newspaper in Duluth, MN. Every Tuesday I post a new column.
Don’t believe the rumors you’ve heard. I haven’t turned into a fatty. Your favorite columnist – whom you’ve always loved not because of his humor, but because of his rugged good looks and thin, girlish profile – is as sexy as ever. Perhaps even too sexy.
I may be 28 years old, the exact age when most people’s metabolism comes to a screeching halt, but that doesn’t mean anything. I may also eat grotesquely unhealthy food nearly every meal of the day, and may have a fridge full of frozen burritos, frozen corn dogs, frozen pizza, and frozen lard loosely shaped into hamburger patties right now, but that doesn’t mean anything either. I may also drink enough beer each day to send average men into diabetic comas, but that doesn’t mean I’ve become a fatty either.
However, I have gained 11 pounds in the past year, so that’s probably why people think I’m a fatty. But they fail to note that I used to weigh 158 lbs, so instead of looking like Brad Pitt, I now just look like Brad Pitt with a slight beer belly. Sounds pretty sexy when I put it that way, doesn’t it? A Brad Pitt you can drink with?
I went to the doctor for my annual checkup, and he informed me that I weigh 169 lbs. It’s probably a good thing that I gained some weight. I no longer fall down when children sneeze. But gaining 11 pounds in one year opened my eyes to the fact that I’m getting older and I’m not very healthy. I don’t work out, I eat garbage three meals per day, I drink more beer than water, and I haven’t eaten lettuce since 1986. Up to this point, my body has consumed and processed all 16,000 calories I’ve force-fed myself each day without any weight gain. Sadly, I think those days are over.
So I’ve thrown out the corn dogs. I’ve replaced the 2% milk with skim. I’ve stopped adding cheese to food items that shouldn’t really have cheese. I’ve limited myself to only drinking beer on weekends, which is about as painful as limiting myself to only peeing on weekends. I’ve switched from white bread to whole wheat bread, which tastes kind of like bread that’s made of sand. I’ve agreed to do 100 situps and 50 pushups each morning unless I’m running late for work, and I’ve mysteriously been running late every day since.
No more eating cake during workplace birthday celebrations. No more eating M&M’s and other little treats that fat ladies at work put in bowls near their desks. When I eat at a restaurant, I’ll only eat what I’m hungry for instead of trying to stuff every oversized portion down my throat. When I get a cavity filled, I’ll have the dentist fill it with Olestra instead of silver. When I use the restroom, I’ll do my best to excrete twice as much as usual.
I’ve written columns in the past about fatties. “Why don’t you stop eating crap, fatty?” I’ve screamed through these pages. Well it’s time to take my own advice. I may still be in the target weight for my height, but I’m sliding down Fatty Slope in a sled made of sugary tears and gingerbread sadness. It’s time to take action.
I vow to you, dear readers, that while I will always be embarrassingly out of shape, I will never be a fatty. Well, at least not until I’m married. Once that poor woman, whoever she may be, puts on that ring, I’m going to let loose with an explosion of weight gain, trading my size 32 jeans for a size 45 within the year. After this past year, I think I’ve proven that I have it in me. Here’s to the future.
