DIETING: BATTLING THE BULGE

For the first time in my life I went to a professional weight loss program to lose ten pounds. I had finally had it with the bulge. In all those photos of ads by plastic surgeons, I looked like the before pictures.

Let me pause here and bemoan something before I carry on -- the culture we live in which is spreading like a wild fire across the globe. It is capitalism's curse that women, used again and again to sell products, have internalized the images that are projected over and over and over in all the media. It has been so internalized in us as to be ingrained. Okay, enough with the rant, for I am very much a part of this disease and suffer from it. I bemoan the time when girls could freely become women in all their capaciousness. I envy women who allow their bodies to do their own thing. But even as I write this I know that I am obsessed with my weight, that I cannot change this about myself, I cannot become the laughing Buddha, fat and enlightened.

so, back to the diet. The doctor said, oh, you are so tiny, what do you need to lose 10 lbs for? She couldn't see me beneath my clothes, the tyre above the waist whenever I wear jeans, which I haven't been wearing in the winter in which I bundle up. It is summer now and all those slim beauties on the beach put me to shame. She put me on a 1000 calorie a day diet, broke down the percentages of fat, carbs and protein, and I have been slogging away at it. Actually, it has been fun doing it for the last two or three days, going to the store to shop for food, making graphs and charts etc etc. It has been hard work educating myself but I enjoy the focus of a new project that affects my health. I suffer from GERD and losing weight, in addition to being a matter of vanity, is also a health concern.

Here is a photo of my bulge . . .