Lard attack and my fear of getting there

Happily enough for me, yesterday’s horoscope said to not calorie count. And so I did the once-a-year thing and dug into a hot chocolate fudge. Not-too-bad as it always is – in spite of Nirula’s hideous white plastic spoons, I am now a little sick and sworn to not touching the overrated decadence simply because I’m terrified of becoming fat.

My closest friends have often times referred to me as superficial neurotic, but some of them are quite “halthy walthy and wise” -- fat by my standards, and I can’t help thunder thighs being truly my most realistic fear. The prospect of swaying arm-fat is enough to keep me awake all night. And if these damn digital weighing scales offer me anything more generous than the reading I’m used to – that’s it, no dinner for three days. And I’m perfectly okay with a bimbo streak or two!

But even though I’m serious, I like to believe I do what it takes to keep my demons at bay, the occasional indulgence notwithstanding. Dying, losing loved ones, being stuck in a lift, losing eyesight, losing limbs, tarantulas, bankruptcy, redundant taste buds, impotence, all that – not that impotence applies to me – but the rest mostly PALES, and you may repeat after me, PALES in comparison to someone casually saying “ Hey, you’ve put on weight.”

Downers like loneliness and other indicators of a pathetic existence all have their place, I suppose, but I'd rather anything else than be proud owner of a sluggish metabolism.

Earlier, it used to be physical pain – my worst nightmare. I would wince, flinch, cry, kick and start bleating defiantly at the mere thought of a tetanus injection. Tooth extractions were a sob-fest. And just the thought of labour pains would make me want to cross my legs permanently. I imagined child birth to be the worst, most extreme physical torture. Adoption would do nicely, I figured. I couldn’t care about prospective-adoptee being some hideous ingrate child who would stab me in my old age. Just as long as I didn’t have to push and bellow and get a horse needle jabbed into my spine to facilitate the smoother arrival of a baby covered in gunk.

Any amount of emotional trauma would be fine by me, just as long as I didn’t literally feel the prick. No injections, no hospitals, and definitely no blood tests. Even today when people circulate texts and mails about so and so urgently needing a certain blood type, I quickly forward the damn thing and turn away, never understanding Johnny Bravo boyfriend who’d rather take a shot than worry about popping pills.

But also, post a few jabs last year, this physical pain thing is no longer my worst fear. I don’t like donating blood, but that event has also been tick-marked, and I probably just hate the thought of pain as much as a normal person. The extremes have given away. And eventually I hope to have a normal delivery, nurse my maternal instinct and warm up to the idea of giving birth to a couple of wrinkled screaming infants.

But back to body image being an issue, this weight-fear, I’m pretty sure, is going to stay. It could possibly stay far away because I tell myself I’ll never LET myself go beyond a point. But if something awful happens – I don’t know, say I marry a wife beater who doesn’t trim his nails and uses them instead to gouge out my eyes -- and out of helplessness, I bloat into the shoes of a convenient alcoholic, that’s another matter. I wouldn’t have seen it coming. But as of now, the plan is to be a mostly fit and thereby adequately hot 40-year-old.

To further that plan, though, I’m going to have to start exercising at some stage. All I do now is vaguely watch what I eat (and drink). Portion control shall set you free; all that. Plus, it helps to not snack on rubbish. I take the stairs and I definitely don’t treat myself to chocolate just because I feel like it. (Only when horoscopes permit) The infrequent indulgences are allowed, and you don’t need a math brain to know which health food offsets what guilt calories. Dinner, go lightly. Period. My worst fear is under control.

But to see my overweight friends not able to follow stupidly simple logic – to cut back on sugar and delete the bloody carbs -- infuriates me. Remember Anil Ambani’s weight loss spiel? Body image is important. Confidence affects your gait and what people think matters. And if that’s what it takes for me to NOT cut loose every time something appetising is placed under my nose, just as well, I say.