It isn't hard to lose weight.
I don’t think anyone has ever said that seriously. But as fuzzy and convenient self-deluding assurances go, in many heads this one sits at the top of the ladder. Or why would not so many of us burn with anxiety and jolt ourselves out of gluttonous-lethargic stupor and get going? How many failures will it take for us to realize that the only diet that really works is the one that permanently tilts the ‘calories in’ and ‘calories out’ equation in the favor of the latter?
But maybe you know all of this and more but would simply like to start tomorrow. It is a delightful thought. Just the hint of putting it off for another day sweeps such a wave of false well-being through each of our cells that the strategy becomes compelling beyond challenge. Over time, it burns into our sub-conscious and every whispered vow to ‘diet’ or ‘lose weight’ awakens the demon that shoves us towards another magically perfect day.
Such bullshit we shovel to our own selves!
I will simply recount some milestones of my life to demonstrate the debilitating cost of dodging the truth that now is the only moment you can count on. And that action, not intention will save the soul.
Be the judge.
1972. As a 14 year old, I confessed to my diary that my main problem of life was my weight. 1972? 41 years ago? And I haven’t waved the white flag of defeat yet?
1974. I qualify for the National Defence Academy and am promptly rejected – temporarily – for excess weight. I return home, give up all food save enough to preserve my mortality, jog many a kilometer in the sun and reach for the medical re-examination famished for the past day and a half. I am declared fit.
1983. My photos before and after marriage reveal a nouveau corpulence of dimensions that should have triggered warnings of imminent calamity. Others ascribed it to happiness thus placing a collective seal of approval on incipient obesity.
1987. During the annual medical examination, confronted by a particularly fastidious doctor who declared every intention of downgrading my medical category on account of obesity, I got to work. I designed a 1200-calorie diet that sucked the lard – and energy – out of me. I walked and walked, and when strength permitted I even jogged. I stayed completely away from oils and sugar. I dropped some 15 kilos, won the unbending medic’s grudging seal of approval and, without delay or fuss, moved back to imbibing fried stuffed parathas and the like.
1990. A mirror-image repeat of 1987. I stuck to the stringent regimen, making no exception to touch even a grain of sugar during celebrations for the birth of our younger son, Siddharth. I lost the 15 or so kilos I had assiduously accumulated. And after Mission Accomplished I reverted to Operation Undo Health with renewed resolve.
2000. I remained overweight through the decade, scaling higher numbers of varying impressiveness. But by 2000 I had completely outdone myself, resolutely staying above 100 kilos and often threatening to cross the 110 landmark. During a visit to Indian Space Research Organisation, on a special weighing scale I checked out how much I might weigh on different planets. I found that I was unfit and obese on all, barring for service on the moon.
2001. My father was operated upon after a cardiac attack. Pacing up and down in a corridor of the hospital I shook a fist at myself and vowed to wake up. After all, he had been in a far better shape than I was and was an inveterate teetotaler. If this did not change my orientation towards health, I asked, what would?
2003. Two more years passed while I waited for that perfect moment. Finally, fed up and cross with myself, I embraced the dangerous Dr Atkins’ Diet. I reinforced the caloric loss with a regular 5 km run, often plodding through the overnight snow. I lost 27 kilos in five months, prompting universal and inebriating adulation. Donning this newly emerged persona, I landed up in Hawaii on a 3-month Study Program. And promptly began to run the short route back to obesity.
2013. In the past decade, I have made many starts, only to flounder in days. A million Excel sheets have been drawn up, charts inserted, formulas set in place only to be deleted and banished even from the Recycle bin even before the downward worm had settled down.
13 August 2013. I am still over 100 kilos and still nursing the dream to scale down to 70! And now I have begun again on a carefully crafted life-style that will ensure healthy eating, regular feed, controlled calories, dollops of exercise and adequate sleep. I am on my way, this time determinedly on a one-way ticket.
Follow my progress here. I will share menus, tips and numbers.
But, more crucially, if you too intend fighting the Battle of the Bulge, read the above story of my sporadic assaults carefully and know that Mr Bond was right – tomorrow never comes.
This is the weight of my argument.