You Fatso – The story of my paunch

I have finally realized that my no longer tacit reserves of cholesterol and its self-disclosing revelations by degrees, articulating themselves to thrust all the time and often deftly, cannot be hidden anymore. After the pretty lady doctor in namma metro seated and facing right at my torso for an entire minute and gave me that “how can there be so much disparity between your rumen and reticulum.. You fatso” look, I have accepted that my paunch has overdone all my efforts to keep it under control. Today, I have lost hopes that somehow someday, my tummy will be back to normal shape. Its time I came to terms with it. My wife chiding me of late by asking “yesht tingalu” (how many months) is actually the purest intended sarcasm which I could not even figure it out. Goddammit! **sobs uncontrollably**

Early warning signs:

Your stomach - before it metamorphoses to belly and eventually a potbelly; will actually send early warning signals. You should actually be smart enough to take notice and act on it, which I totally failed at. For e.g. while bathing I accidentally ran my hand on the precipice underneath my navel and could not recall of its whereabouts just a year ago.  While it was totally serious, the element of surprise died as soon as I walked out of the bathroom and looked at the full length mirror in the room. I just did not even realize how whataybaby rested so easily even with my weak grip around his waist.  Why would I automatically become conscious of breathing while posing for a picture? Oh dude! It all falls in place now! How I wish I could go back and change it now! But my dear friend, time is something that you can’t own and revisit.

Ga-Ga over Yoga

Of all the attempts to get rid of my paunch, the first one was joining Yoga at workplace. The way I took off doing 108 Suryanamaskars at one go was the epitome of happiness. I thought, at this rate, my belly fat will just melt away. But later I learnt that it was just one time gimmick to celebrate international Yoga day and next sessions were full of asanas which I could barely do in right way because of my potbelly coming in between. Even after 4 weeks, I did not see any noticeable changes. Heartbroken on how Yoga did not help me shed even a few kilos around my waist; I blamed Baba Ramdev wholeheartedly, my mind started exaggerating my C5-C6 disk herniation to hyperbolic degrees. To aid my decision, god sent a thief to office who stole my Yoga Mat. Yoga ended with a perpetual loss of 300 bucks without burning an ounce of fat around my waist.  

Desperate attempts:

The next attempt was so infallible that it just couldn’t go wrong at all! No prizes for guessing! It was buying a fit-bit band. IT IS NOT FUNNY how I convinced myself that the better results you see with your eyes, the more you’ll be motivated to exercise. I also vaguely recalled one of my friends telling me about the bio feedback bullshit which compelled me to buy it. The first couple of weeks were so good that with completing 10,000 steps, I already started imagining that my jeans pants had loosened up a little. That night I dreamt of a six-pack abs just by wearing a fit-bit band and walking around. But even this fascination didn’t last long. Just a week after that, I realized that when I was asleep during my entire 14 hour journey from Dubai to Chicago, the step count had reached 8500. WTF man! With sheer disappointment, I waved my hands at air hostess only to realize that the step counter again jumped another 3 steps. The dejection I experienced at 35000 feet was just unfathomable. Fit-bit was pure shit-bit!

A friend in need is a friend in deed

By now, I had zeroed in on the root cause. The actual problem was that I did not have an exercising 

partner/friend. Exercising with friends can make it more fun and increase the probability of sticking to an exercising routine. So I and Shashi meticulously worked out a plan. We decided to compromise our sleep by an hour and go to Turahalli every morning for a run. The last resort of shedding my potbelly had perfectly taken off to a head start. This time, it worked like charm. We got used to a routine. 4 km of walk/run in the forest, bitching about stupid bosses at workplace, talking about Data, Mobile, analytics, cloud and debating the Indian political Diaspora; getting to witness the ostentatious displays of peacock’s beautiful feathers to attract the peahens; Oh the bliss!  Alas, just as we started shedding few kilos, Shashi had to travel to USA for three months. And the Turahalli chapter saw a dismal ending. But the question “Kya aap paunch vi pass se tezz hain” still remained.

Within a few months, buddy maga Bali shifted to my apartment. But the damage was already done. In this two month gap, my paunch had thrived on the Bajji-Bondas, Death by Chocolate and all the possible junk which had Buy one Get One offer in D-mart. To add to it was my eternal craving for rice. With the little bit of motivation left, we decided to run 5K, only on the weekends. Our wives made fun of it so candidly. We took it as a challenge. We just took it. We couldn't do a thing about it. because of inexplicably mysterious problems. It was very evident that the entire universe was acting in unison to stop my belly fat from shedding. It was sort of anti incumbency experienced by my stomach. The more I tried to exercise, the larger it grew in size.

Epilogue

I was pounding down the bajji-bonda little hesitantly. Abhi read my mind and gave me a piece of advice: “Macha, don’t think too much. Don't stop eating a food just because it contains fat, and never think a food is healthy only because it does not contain fat. That was the moment my mind was waiting for. Even before he could complete, my mind raced ahead of time and convinced myself with a variety of reasons. A doctoral student from IISc saying this has to make perfect sense.

A great man once said that belly is actually a sign of happiness; And yeah! Beyond your good health nothing matters. Happiness starts in the stomach. Above all, fat reserves are important for the body.

I am driving back home and Fat Boy Slim’s “Eat sleep rave repeat” is playing aloud in my car.