Random Ramblings of a Reluctant Blogger

I stand a slim slim chance of winning the battle of the bulge. 

These ominous lines were documented  by me some three-and a-half decades back, in The Indian Express.

The only, nay major difference between then and now is the nature of the battle. Then in the prime of my youth, with a lean and mean frame, I had chronicled my crusade to add weight to my ‘enviable’ frame.

And now, still in the prime of youth, I am once again revisiting the struggle only to dissolve the adamant belly fat.  That, my doctor assures me, I still am within the ideal weight category, and struggling to cut down my protruding belly, is almost reminiscent of my weight struggles of the past.

Friends, then who had the ability to put on weight with every gasp of air they breathed and marvelled at my inability to hoard fat, now greet me with a smile reminding me that my tummy precedes me. Much like the tinkling bells announce the arrival of the elephant. (This reference to the pachyderm should not be considered a Freudian slip). An overall obese person has a better chance of a sculpted body than me who has a tummy on a thin frame.

I had, then, done every bit to add to my body fat but without  success. And am now doing every bit again to lose some with as much success.

While I am not in touch with my earlier doctor who had delighted in calling me under-weight and prescribed an array of tonics to be tried on my feeble frame, the present one shooed me off saying “exercise.”

The  well-meaning efforts of a friend and amateur dietician who tried to help me in my weight-gain plan had prescribed a balanced  intake: breakfast with eggs and juice, lunch with so many grams of so-and so-stuff to be washed down with yet another juice, had come to nought. And yet another diet-restricted regime has once again has had no  effect. Little doubt that I am sceptical of these dieticians and their balanced diets.

While I had resorted to ayurvedic medicines too with all those funny sound­ing ingredients which have the solid back­ing of grandmothers and the weight of tradition and time behind it, to gain weight, I did it this time too. The result then and now remains the same. Nothing worked for me.

I must admit that for a brief tenure my forays into yoga did bear fruit, but my liberated tummy screamed “I am and thus I shall show.” 

I had lamented then about the copious literature for those wanting to lose weight vis a vis precious little for the likes of me who want to  gain some girth, I fell these books do precious little.

“But why put on weight,” a friend had asked. “Why not .” I had retorted hoping there could be some way of transferring flab from one person to another. I still hope such a thing is possible. After all, what is flab for one person could well be ‘flabulous’ for another. But unfortunately I keep releasing Flab, is convertible not transferable.

Everyone then, with  the  weight  of  experience behind them had said it is easier to put on weight than lose it. I now tend to agree with them. And while I was setting it down in black and white the battle of the bulge, it  has now come to haunt me from the other end of the spectrum.

The only constant, whether you are fighting to gain weight or to lose it, is  the struggle. And given a choice I will prefer the former.