Damned if you are fat, damned if you are not

I know fat-shaming is a thing, and calling someone fat these days could be deemed politically incorrect, unless you are saying “a fat lot of good” or suchlike. But I am using the word “fat” not as a pejorative, but as a generic. Like when you call a six-footer “tall”, and a five-footer “short”. Like that. So, at times, I feel I am fat, body weight-wise, very objectively: these are times when clothes fitting me to a tee suddenly become difficult to get into, or a pair of jeans no longer need that belt I had picked up a couple of months ago.

It’s a cyclical thing. You win some, you lose some. But the dialectics are always there. Damn, am I fatter than I was last month? Or, yay, I’ve dropped a dress size since I took up doing the 10,000 steps-a-day ritual last month.

But as I continue on this rollercoaster, there’s not much help from those around me. Because when it comes to losing weight, I can never be right. Like I mentioned earlier, whenever I work very hard, and try and stick to a regimen of workouts — alongside eating “sensibly” (which is really tough, believe me, because there is nothing I like better than popping in a couple of laddoos or cupcakes a day), the results finally begin to take shape.

And then, I am often horrified by what many people tell me.

Them: “My God, look at you, are you ill? Are you sure you are okay?”

Me: “Yes, I’m fine, I have been consciously trying to lose weight — and I am not exactly reed-thin, I mean, I have only lost a couple of kilos...”

Them: “But it looks like you are going to vanish into thin air… Maybe you should see a doctor?”

And then, a few months down the line, I lose momentum, usually triggered by a break, after which I find it tough to get back on track. Tomorrow is another day, I keep telling myself, but that tomorrow never descends. The pounds and kilos start creeping back, like bad pennies.

sushmita@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai