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Battling the Inner Fat Man

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November 28, 2004

It's not a weight problem, but it's an issue. I can't eat everything I want. I am what is known as a mesomorph: I put on muscle and fat easily and relatively equally. It means I'm automatically stockier than my father, and I will never be a string bean. But if I don't exercise, the muscle will provide a perfect foundation for the fat that will build up. When I was a child, I was a "peanut". Premature to begin with, and a picky eater, it's understandable that I was not really one for the baby fat that might have lasted. When I started elementary school, where there was a formal dress code, slim pants (the boys' petite) were the order of the day. I was older than my classmates, but frailer. But that all changed when I went to camp. Suddenly, I wasn't under the watchful eye of my parents, able to have dessert without vegetables, sometimes even two, and what's more, the only currency was clothed in chocolate and imprinted with the words "Crunch" and "Hersheys". After dinner every night, and twice on Saturday movie night, we could get candy bars from the "store." These candies were bet constantly, from the outcome of the pool and ping pong games, to dares, to whatever fact was currently in dispute, whatever chore needed escape. I got fat. A third-grade eighty-four pounder. I know a number of full-grown women today who barely outweigh my 10 year old former self. Not obese, and really, probably not so bad in general, but in an environment where one could pick riflery and tubing behind a boat as athletic endeavors, it can be rather easily understood that a lot of caloric in and only a moderate caloric out led to an increase in fat content. Ever since, the fat has called to me from my abdomen after it called to me from the plate. It goes on, it stays on, and goes away only with extremely consistent exercise. Of course, this extremely consistent exercise, like the chocolatey goodness before it, becomes addictive, and where I would have been sad not to have a choco-something, I'm now irritated that I can't get my endorphin rush from a workout. I don't need to get bulked up; I just need to get the bloodflow going and the heart rate up. I snap, I get tired easily, and I don't operate at my mental best. With thanks to Mike Doughty.

This was Perspective , and it appeared on November 28, 2004 1:55 PM.

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