All through high school, i weighed 78kgs. Being six feet tall, and weighing as much made me looked somewhat like a malnourished ostrich. Losing weight was never a thought that struck me then, even in my wildest dreams. After my undergrad, my weight rose upto 82. But it was still okay by my standards. I looked pretty lean. As for everyone of my age then, i used to go to the gym to build some muscles, do some workouts and try and remain fit. I used to walk a lot everyday which tuned my weight in balance. The horror struck when i joined the software company. It was a small company, about eighty of us worked in a large hall; project manager sitting inside his glass cubicle from where he could ‘keep an eye’ on everyone. It was a sendentary job programming modules and writing codes. The only time when you could leave your chair was for the coffee and smoke breaks. Those too came with implicit timers and every second extra owed you more work on the desk. I commuted to work on public transport, and to make it simpler, the bus stop was just five minute walk from where i lived. Till then, for me dieting was something that only lame people especially of feminine gender did to make themselves look extra special and have a topic to talk amongst their peers. A year and a half passed. I put on five more kgs, which wasn’t that bad either. Then i came to the states.
It was a different experience for me here at the states. Every fast food you ordered came with either chicken or cheese and in most cases – both. The first year was really enjoyable. The fat-rich savory food pleased to my palates till the last bite as i munched on from pizzas to burgers to subs and whole range of intercontinental dishes. It’d been a year for my flatmate when we (me and my girlfriend) arrived here, so he was a bit calorie conscious but never a spoil sport. Though he had gained some weight, he never said no to a beer. The merry-making for a year, caused me to gain some ‘muffin-tops’ and a slight pot belly; in his case he acquired an acquired an outright huge belly – maybe i could put it as a cauldron belly? Then came sunny.
Sunny was our another flatmate; male by gender. His name’s a little misleading here in the states, i’ve seen that look in many girls at many different places and comments like “Sunny? Your name is Sunny?” “Awesome”. Well anyway, he’s got a barbaric look and a matching body. He doesn’t have much height but he does have a broad build. For half a semester, we were rejoicing as in the past but at one point of time, everybody realized their sluggishness and started working out. We started by doing beach body exercises from DVD’s. It really did cost a lot of determination and perseverance. Two things which i have in a limited amount, but we did try our best. Since i was teaching this semester and the workload started growing heavy on me, i decided to take a break. My girlfriend too, tried to concentrate on her work. Sunny on the other hand had comparatively a lesser workload so he continued on the mission of losing weight.
He was a real brute. He consumed 1200 calories and burnt 800 calories. I don’t know how he survived it but he lost about 20 lbs. He was like an inspiration to all three of us. So we started dieting too. Consuming less carbs and working out more. I lost about 3 lbs. It was nice to see all that but in the meantime, somewhere it felt that i was getting weak. I thought i was imagining things. So one day i burned about 500 lbs on the treadmill, came home had a light snack and went to bed. Then came pain.
Next morning, i was feeling weak. My thyroid hurt everytime i swallowed anything at all and i was having a mild headache. So much for trying to lose weight, i cursed within but that wasn’t alleviating my pain. I suffered the whole day. Being sick is the worst thing that could happen here at the states since there’s no one to look after you. Luckily since i was a weekend, my girlfriend was there to boil some hot water, make some tea and cook some food. I feasted without hesitation that day. I didn’t care about calories or my weight. I just ate. Next day, it felt that some of my strength had returned. I wasn’t feeling all that good but it didn’t feel bad either. Then onwards, i decided to go slow. Losing weight is really painful especially if you try to do it overnight, but if feel if you target it over a large span of time – i think i should be fun.
