Back in 2006 Partner and I went on a weight-loss regime. I
went from 215 pounds to about 180 in a year or so; within another year I was
170; a year later, I reached my fighting weight of 160 pounds.
I’d had no idea that I was overweight before; when you gain
weight gradually, you see very little change in the mirror from day to day. I
look at photos of myself from the early 2000s, however, and I see a stuffed
sausage:
After I lost weight, I felt much better. I felt smaller, for one thing. When you lose
weight, you literally take up less room than before. Stairs are easier to
climb. When you eat, you get full more quickly, and overeating can be
positively painful.
I joined a health club in 2008, which also helped me keep my
weight down. But my kidney stones began to irk me more and more, and I found
that thirty minutes on the treadmill made me ache, and I was dreading it more
and more from day to day. So I quit the club in early 2013.
Within a month I’d gained ten pounds.
This doesn’t seem like much, and it didn’t show too much – I
didn’t have to buy new clothes – but when you’ve lost 55 pounds, it seems a
shame to put any of it back on. So, when a friend told me in June about Mimi
Spencer’s “Fast Diet,” I was all ears. It’s very simple: two days a week
(mine were Monday and Thursday), you eat only 500 or 600 calories; the other
days you eat normally. Most people lose a pound a week. I cheated a bit, but by
August I was back down to 163 or so, which was fine with me.
Then, around Labor Day, I discovered that I had cancer.
What a nice time I’d chosen to lose weight!
So now I am on the opposite of the Fast Diet. I am cramming
a candy bar down my gullet as I write this. I need to gain weight – as much as
possible – before the worst of the treatment begins. Almost everyone loses
weight while undergoing chemo and radiation, and if you have a few extra pounds
– well, hallelujah.
Pass the butter, please. And the gravy. And the ham. And pour
a little olive oil over everything.
I’m fattening up.
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