Winter: Fat People in Thin Bodies

We’re everywhere.

We are the woman in the grocery store, her cart filled with skinny food.

We are the man who grinds away at the gym, lifting weights and sweating his six-pack abs body into muscular submission.

We are the child who sits in the classroom, her skinny-kid right arm posed with a pencil over a math problem.

To look at us you would think we have not a care in the world, that we live perfect normal slender lives – that we can eat whatever we want without consequences.

You would be wrong.

If you looked closer, you will notice the woman gazing longingly at the snack aisle, waging a personal battle with a bag of Cheetos.

On the man’s phone, you would see the man’s “before” photo, depicting his 400-pound body plopped on the sofa and eating a half gallon of ice cream.

If you were in the child’s inner circle, you would know that she spent last summer at a fat camp for children, eating nothing but salads, steamed vegetables, and lean meats for a month and being trained and buffed for admission into thinland.

We are thin because we have struggled, and the body you see today is subject to change; fat people in thin bodies often fall off the diet wagon, sometimes permanently.

Maintaining a thin body over time is more difficult psychologically than losing weight.

There is something heady about experiencing the pounds sliding off, buying new clothes, and receiving compliments from family and friends, but weight maintenance is pedestrian – life after weight loss returns to normal, along with everyday problems and dramas.

No more compliments, new clothes fade, meals still have to be cooked, the laundry to be done, the car repaired.

If we’re vigilant, we can expect the needle on the scale to record, each and every day, around our goal weight, but, more often than not, that extra slice of pie can add two pounds in one day.

One can argue forever about “water weight,” but the truth is, if we add other slices of pie, two pounds can become three, four, five pounds, and so on.

A full-frontal binge can add 10 pounds within a month.

Unlike naturally thin people, our weight tends to be wildly unstable.

Recently, I went off the rails for about four days and packed on almost six pounds.

It took me nearly a month to lose it.

When you see us in our thin states, we look like any other thin person.

But don’t be fooled:

You are viewing an ephemeral snapshot in time.