Hiding in Plain Sight

There are enough and more absolute absurdities everyday. No more so for someone with the "put on too much weight" category. And the put on too much weight category witnesses this - old friends, batch mates and colleagues running into them at airports or coffee lounges and either failing or refusing to register cognisance.

Such a pity. For me. This particular day I was enroute to my vacay destination and I came full frontal "cannot avoid contact" contact with a batch mate from B school. She was always slim and gorgeous. Now after a child even more so. She looked up once and once more...completely failed to recall who I was. I could see in her eyes the glimmer of confusion followed by the blank "who cares anyway" look.

Can't blame her. It's been eight years and thirty five kilos.

So I slipped off, quietly; not doubting for a moment that if she dwelled on it just a moment longer, she'd recall exactly who I was. But by then I would have waddled far off. At  least I got to avoid the "what the hell happened to you?".

So I win. One more day of burying my head in the sand and pretending the world cannot see. But more of that later. Need to go get a magazine or something to hide behind. Refuse to permit anymore run into 's today.

Hello Flab

Being obese is a bigger tragedy for someone who has been previously fit and healthy. As compared to someone who considers themselves as one of those who have always been on the chubby side. I am not a big fan of body shaming, but I do believe we deserve to be healthy enough to live a life free of restrictions.

For e.g. I love chicken dum biryani and red velvet cupcakes. I want to eat chicken dum biryani and red velvet cupcake  for the rest of my life. I don’t want my little guilty pleasures to be guilty anymore. I want to know my body is capable of burning whatever I throw at it - without ramifications.

I suppose starting a journey can be as simple as that. The love of cupcakes. As I was saying, I was previously fit, healthy and love handle free. At some point I began my descent into obesity and realized my capacity to amass huge amounts of weight in no time at all. I suppose my body is very responsive either way - it oscillates between fat and healthy seamlessly - depending on what I put into it.

For the past 5 years I have taken away more than I put into my body. The retribution has been severe. Severe acid reflux, constant fatigue, breathlessness, high blood pressure, irregular menses, migraines, a double chin and of course overall bloatedness. Truth is this is a body that wasn’t really meant to be this unhealthy. But it got so anyway. I made it so.

They say your body snaps back easily in your 20's. I wasted away my 20's telling myself I could do it anytime. Now on the other side of 30, I am faced with the growing realization that time is running out and my body is slowly but steadily beginning to give up on me.

I am still quite an optimist and in my mind I believe I can do it. I suppose the trick is to find the formula that works for me. To start with, I am putting myself out there, in a fairly public manner - to hold myself accountable, I suppose. In a way I'm hoping I can talk my way through this, and hopefully find some semblance of a transformation. Hopefully.

So here's Hoping.