Gaining weight, losing sanity

My friends have been badgering me for sometime now to cut down on my food and beer intake. I suppose it has something to do with my gut-- an ugly thing that, for the past year, has grown into a massive monstrosity.

I don’t know if I can take my friends’ advice seriously; I’ve always been a big eater and I can’t, for the life of me, quit drinking my favorite beverage. I remember quite sadly around a year ago when I decided to start a diet: it was a huge failure. Until now, my siblings still make fun of me about that botched plan of mine.

I thought that going on a diet would be a piece of cake. I told myself that it wouldn’t be that hard and with a little self control, I’d be a lean, mean, trimmed-down machine in a few months. I was dead wrong.

It made sense that in order to be successful with my planned diet, I should eat the healthy (but disgusting) stuff: tofu, bean sprouts, soymilk, you get the idea. So I picked up the healthy (but disgusting) stuff in the supermarket and whipped me up a dish of tofu, bean sprouts, and tuna sautéed in vegetable oil. I was surprised that-- notwithstanding my inferior cooking skills—the healthy (but disgusting) stuff didn’t turn out so bad after all. I stored the food in some Tupperware containers and placed them in the fridge. I figured the health food I just cooked was good enough for at least three meals. Or so I thought.

I ate the whole thing in one sitting. That was the end of my diet.

I’d give anything to get my old metabolism back. When I was a teenager, I’d gobble up everything I could lay my hands on and never get fat. Those were the good old days.

Anyway, after my diet failed, I thought I could just eat anything I wanted and compensate through vigorous exercise. So one fine day I bought a pair of sneakers, several muscle shirts, plus a couple of basketball shorts, and decided to use my father’s treadmill which was gathering dust in a corner of the house. I set the timer for 30 minutes, and mounted the treadmill. I said to myself: “Half an hour will do. Anyway I haven’t had any exercise, so I’ll just work my way up. Today I’ll brisk walk for 30 minutes, the next day 45, and so on and so forth.” Or so I thought.

I lasted 15 minutes.

After the whole ordeal I was crouched down on the floor, sweating profusely, my heart pounding hard against my chest, and I was trying very hard to catch my breath. I never got on the old treadmill again; it’s still collecting dust in the corner as I write this.

I didn't expect that one could lose his mind while trying to lose weight.

But, all is not lost. I learned a valuable lesson after all the insanity and two failed attempts at trying to lose weight: you must put your mind into dieting and exercise. In other words, you can’t do it halfheartedly.

Otherwise, you’d end up pigging out on three meals’ worth of tofu and collapsing after 15 minutes of walking in place atop a creaking old treadmill.

Oh well. I’ve always believed that eating and sleeping are more productive activities anyway. Now those are the things I could put my mind into. Easily.