Fat-Free!

These days I’m quite in love with my bedroom mirror. Full-length and spotless, it’s been rather nice to me, because instead of whispering sweet little nothings (read lies!) in my ear, it tells me that I’m gorgeous. Beautiful and desirable. That I’m a bewitching goddess. Yes, yes I know this kind of self-flattery is incredibly disturbing and requires serious therapy but there is more to this madness believe you me. You see, I’ve lost an incredible amount of weight in these past five months or so. Okay well I still don’t look like Cindy doing crunches in her aerobics ki video but I do get an ‘Oh my God! You look so hot!’ rather than ‘there’s the girl who ate all our food’ kind of comment every now and then.

I’ll be honest with you – looking pretty after months of being referred to as ‘the pudgy little donut’ grows on you in a serious way. And this comes from a person who wouldn’t give two hoots about the way she looked. Let the hair be messy, the clothes unkempt and the nails frighteningly short and if someone had a problem with it, they could jettison themselves all the way to Timbuktu. So every time my mom would show her concern about my steadily expanding behind, my overreaction would know no bounds: “So what if I am fat?” I would snap back. “If I’m happy with the way I look then why should you or anyone else care?” Ammi like the smart woman that she is, knew it was futile to get me to listen and so eventually succumbed to a menacing silence of sorts.

Five months and countless work out sessions later I still think that most people are a dime a dozen and will say just about anything to spite you. Others will go out of their way to make sure that your life is a reflection of hell and more. So what changed then you ask? It began with the little things and slowly led to bigger ones, enough to scare a feeble-minded person like me. For starters I suddenly realized that I could no longer slip into my figure-hugging kameezes with great ease. It was more like an intense pulling and tugging ritual and by the end of it all I would barely manage to squeeze into the hourglass shaped number while my lungs would scream for mercy. I was alarmed but only slightly: “I’m a growing child,” I would console myself. “I need my strength – I’ll just tell the darzi to loosen ‘em a bit while he’s at it.” And that’s just what happened. My darzi adjusted while I lived up to my end of the bargain by packing a few more pounds, a few more inches and lards of flesh on every conceivable part of my body. It wasn’t just a matter of self-satisfaction; it was more like I seemed to have lost control over my eating habits. I would devour kulfis that belonged to my brother, sip coke like there was no tomorrow and gobble down samosas by the second. Funnily enough I never ate a home-cooked meal that way. A cursory bite here and there, that was all. Even when I had tires around my waist, I couldn’t be held responsible for the world’s food crisis. In retrospect, it wasn’t how much I ate. It was more like what I chose to eat and so my mouth developed a mind of its own in the process.

Anyways to cut the long story short, I seemed to increase manifold within a span of just a few months – double chin, flabby arms and the works. I couldn’t shower without being terribly mortified and shedding a tear here and there. There were days when I would avoid mirrors at all costs because I couldn’t stand to look at the enormous person staring back at me. I wish I could say that all that sadness made me turn over into a new leaf – in fact I resolved to consume more calories whenever I was depressed. My body was obviously at war with my self-esteem while I stood by and watched miserably.

It may sound extremely lame at this point but what shocked me witless was not some out-of-body experience. Rather it was observing the maasi hang out the laundry one fine day. My colossal garments took up most of the space and she didn’t know what to do with the rest of the washed clothes waiting patiently in the basket. Eventually they were spread out in the living room left to dry under the fan. I couldn’t believe how huge I was and the idea was absolutely terrifying. Diabetes and heart diseases were probably contemplating their attacks while I was busy filling my insides with cholesterol. It was really disgusting to picture myself as an ice-cream stuffing, chicken munching obese individual. Disgusting and chilling.

Call me narcissistic but I’ve always believed that I was sent down on this earth to do great things. To inspire and to lead. Putting on an unhealthy amount of weight was not going to help in my relentless quest to save humanity (?). I had to do something about it instead of sitting around sulking and feeling sorry for myself. The idea of joining a fitness club (which I somehow thought was home for the intellectually challenged) was not so elusive anymore. I needed to make some serious changes in my lifestyle and that I suppose was half the battle won. So to the gym it was where I made a 360° turn from a self-conscious, disgruntled and overweight female to a carefree and happy woman. The transformation is truly phenomenal.

Of course I’d be lying if I told you that it was easy. That I haven’t foregone simple pleasures like falooda and biryani. It bites not being able to eat mindlessly. But the fact that I’m writing up a storm (good bye writer’s block) and am loving myself a little more each day, more than makes up for it. I may not be a cross-country runner but I can walk all the way from my department to the university gate without huffing and puffing like a possessed soul. Catching that metro bus home is not quite the Herculean task it used to be. Resilience is a hard attribute to come by – especially for a weak-kneed person like me, but it’s there and it’s mine to keep. Going by the mother of all clichés, losing weight has been a life-changing experience for me because I have evolved and possibly come a full circle too. And it’s not everyday that you begin to appreciate yourself so bring on the brown bread!

But what about food you ask? What about the moral of the story? You see my dear readers, life isn’t all about food. Most of it is about miracles. The ones that happen because of the magic inside you.