My Experiments with my weight…..

In school I was infamously called as moti, a slang used for someone who is overweight. I used to get furious at the beginning but as the days passed by I got used to this word and then started ignoring it. However, mother took it seriously, she stopped making samosas, vada paav and all those oily (yet yummy) food stuffs for me. I kept wondering , “Why on the earth all unhealthy things are so tasty?” She asked me to jog daily in the morning, she enrolled me for the aerobics and power yoga classes, she even bought good shoes and tees for me. She consulted a dietitian who changed my diet plan. Every week there was a different diet , no non veg diet for a week, only fruits or only soups for another, the diet was getting stricter and mother was getting determined day by day. Even my friends who visited me were served fruits. Mother was sure to achieve her goal, to make me a skinny and sexy girl from a chubby and over weight one. When mother was busy trying hard to help me loose weight, I was busy eating samosa, chocolate, pastries  without her knowledge from the pocket money she gave me. I was fourteen then, was going through hormonal changes, friends had started dating, mother was forcing to go on a diet, exam results were screwed, all I could count on was the chocolate brownie and the chocolate ice cream.

When mother discovered that all her attempts were futile, she stopped my pocket money. She kept checking with my friends and every week she checked my weight. She even hired a personal instructor for me. She was a very professional and had clear instructions from my mom, to not heed to any of my “bahanas”. She visited us in the evening, first week I listened to all her instructions and mother was also convinced that I won’t misbehave. After around a week mother was busy attending her friends when the instructor came. I was harassed enough (for a week), and was tired of being a nice girl, so thought of taking revenge, I locked her in the washroom and ran away to my cousin’s place. Mother didn’t talk me for weeks and finally gave up on me.

In college I had “hot and sexy” seniors, juniors, peers from all around India but that wasn’t enough to give me a wake up call. Even the instructions from my roommates didn’t budge me to even think of  weight loss. I was happy in my skin and didn’t care about the world. I even never checked my weight for years. After graduation I was supposed to join a reputed company, and for that had to undergo a medical checkup. After years I was on the weighing machine and it showed me something unexpected. I got tensed, for the first time ever in my life I was worried about my weight, my BMI was tending towards obesity and I was clueless for years. In the flashback I could see my nagging mother, my aerobics teacher, my yoga classes. Till now, I used to mock at my cousins and friends who thought twice before eating ice cream, chocolates or mithai. Now, it was their time to mock at me (well I knew they already did, but I never noticed). I remembered that dietician, that personal instructor, that yoga sir and mother. It felt as if the whole world around me were falling apart. I called my maseha (mother) for help, I lamented about the weight issue. Though she was not of much help, my previous karma was responsible for her reaction, I was determined and had already made an action plan. The plan was as follows: Meet a dietitian, join dance class (as I am not a gym person and I like dancing), join a deist conscious ladies club, avoid hanging out with friends who have high metabolism rate, join a yoga class (to not to get depressed if I don’t loose weight), avoid office parties (where I ended up eating junk food). After six months I had reduced around 6 pounds, but that was not enough. I was getting compliments from friends, colleagues and my family members.

” Saari tarif ek tarif, aur you have lost weight ek taraf”- Abhiruchi Chaand

I had to work hard, my BMI was still in the higher range and again I made a strict plan. But unfortunately dengue struck me and I was hospitalized for 15 days, I was sure that all my attempts to lose weight were futile and I had to start again. It took me around 6 months to rejoin the gym, but by then I had joined another company that required lot of travel. I couldn’t do any kind of exercise and the result was higher BMI.

Now, in my new job  position I don’t have to travel much, I can plan my schedule. I can plan my weekdays and even weekends. I decided to join Zumba but somehow it didn’t work out. Now, I have decided to learn tennis, my childhood dream which I couldn’t take up because of one reason or the other. It’s been two weeks and I am enjoying it. Let’s see where my BMI lands next!

“Nothing was a more powerful compass of my mood or a better indication of my self-worth than the number on the scale.”
― Betsy Lerner, Food and Loathing: A Life Measured Out in Calories