Two Small Pounds

It started about a year ago… with two small pounds.

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I’ve been drawing little self-portraits for a while.  A lot of people noticed that I tend to draw myself much fatter than I actually am.

“Naw,” they say, “you don’t look like that at all.”

So I’ve tried to draw myself ultra-skinny, like everyone else seems to see me, and it never looks quite right.Yeah.  That seems a little more accurate.

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Some background:

When I was in high school, I weighed about 150 pounds.  I was 6’1″.  That put me about thirty pounds under my ideal weight, which, in some states, apparently means I was legally anorexic.  That was a trivia bit I heard somewhere.  I’ve never really validated it.  I assume it refers to Texas, because of course it does.

I remember the first time I walked down the stairs and noticed a “bouncing” in my chest.  It was weird – I had developed man-boob fat.  I was living in the Czech Republic at the time, and I sustained myself on a diet of lard-filled rolls and Nutella.  I’d gained so much weight it was noticeable – my friends called me “Fat Dancing Braddy.”

I won’t tell you where the “dancing” part came from.

Eventually, I figured out that eating nothing but fat and chocolate was bad for you.  My weight gain started to get a bit more under control.  Don’t think I ever lost my jigglers, though.

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About a year ago, I took a health assessment, asking for my height and weight.  I provided the info, and the computer spat back the results:

Your weight:  190 lbs.

Ideal weight for your height:  188 lbs.

So I took up jogging – not much, and not often.  Maybe a half-hour, maybe twice a week.  I also maintained a steady diet of about six pizzas and a gallon of ice cream a week.  I took the assessment again last week and wound up with:

Your weight:  202 lbs.

Ideal weight for your height:  188 lbs.

For Christmas I got all new pants in an all new pants size.  It’s kinda depressing to put them on, but my legs don’t feel like sausages anymore.

And the weight’s noticeable now, in a way it wasn’t before.  I’ve got this tiny little shelf below my pecks – completely useless, too.  I can’t even balance the remote on it, but it’s there, like a little ledge for a tiny mountain climber to stand on until he can reach my shoulders.

Guess that’s what happens when you start getting older.  My prolonged second-adolescence is over.

Am I still too young for a mid-life crisis?