The fat kid in the family

If you lined me and my cousins up in a row, we would look like this:  1110111.  The round shape in the middle is me.  at 5'2" and 116 lbs, I was the fat kid.  Since that day, I have expanded my franchise, so to speak.

When I was a kid, I looked like a craft project made of pipe cleaners.  Then at the age of about 11, just when you need a boost, I developed a little round stomach.  I could guess what was in store for me by looking at mother and bubbe, both of whom were rotund and getting rotunder.  I  believed and did not want to believe that rotundity was inevitable. Everyone in the family helpfully suggested that I would look really great if I lost (choose one:) 5/10/15 lbs.

I fought the good fight for a long time.  Diet, exercise.  Exercise, diet.  No fat, no carbs, walk fast, walk slow, lift heavy/light weights two/four days a week.  Still, the numbers on the scale kept inching up.

I am not alone.  Everyone I know is on a diet.  And all these dieters are agreed that despite really cutting calories they are really not hungry.


For me, however, I find that when I am on a diet I really am hungry.  Very hungry.  Waking up in the middle of the night with gnawing hunger pains type hungry.  Starving.  Every day on a diet is a potential Yom Kippur.

Now here's the tough part.  I could totally forget about diets and be comfortable just as I am, except that I don't stay as I am without watching what I eat, I just get fatter.

Heredity sure is a bitch.