A Change in You

by Andy Millott

4/30/2 

            If you live in the USA chances are that youÂ’re not 100% happy with your body.  And if youÂ’re trendy, like most people in this country, chances are that you work out and watch what you eat . . . a little.  So youÂ’re working out and eating right, but you still donÂ’t like the way you look.  What gives?  I mean, youÂ’ve convinced yourself that you have a nice face, and youÂ’re finally accepting the fact that there are just some things that your hair will never do for you.  You have a credit card and you sure know how to charge it up on clothes.  You just donÂ’t like your body, and no mind games or shopping sprees will change that.

First letÂ’s identify your specific complaints:

1)      Your butt and thighs are too big and jiggle when you walk

2)      Your upper arms are flabby

3)      When you smile really big or look straight down at the ground you have a double chin.

You know your physical faults and you ponder them.  Over a bowl of ice cream after watching a 10:00 re-run of Friends you flip your index finger over your waddle and begin to cry.  Tears stream down your fat cheeks and drip into your now salty Homemade style Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, topped with rich caramel sauce and toasted coconut.  YouÂ’re so upset that you can barely finish scarfing it down.  You really notice thereÂ’s a problem when you lift the bowl to your face to lick up the melted caramel-cream mixture and you canÂ’t reach the bottom of the bowl with your tongue.  The rim is pressing so hard against your cheeks that the red marks will still be visible when you go to work the next morning.

A commercial for Alley McBeal flashes on the screen and you hurl your sticky bowl across the room, throw your head into the corner of your sofa and saturate it with saliva, snot and still more tears.  After realizing that Alley is not the enemy, just because she is frighteningly thin and anorexic looking, you lift yourself up from the sofa and mope into the bathroom – cottage cheese thighs bouncing to and fro.  Starring at yourself in the mirror you vow to make a change, but how?  “IÂ’m just not meant to be thin”, you tell yourself.  ThatÂ’s it, go ahead and lie.  You try your best to convince yourself that you belong to the 0.0001% of the population with a glandular disorder that keeps their metabolism so low that they canÂ’t burn fat.  You forget all about the 2 gallons of ice cream you keep stocked in your freezer, the pizza you order every lonely Saturday night, and the countless little candies you gobble on here and there.

If you truly are unhappy with your body making that change is so simple.  It all comes down to one thing, and one thing only.  Make the choice.  Would you rather keep your lifestyle and your flab, or are you willing to change your lifestyle in exchange for more energy, a better body, and so much more self-respect?  The choice is yours, and yours alone.

I watch friends and family complain about their body and talk about changing their eating and exercise habits so they can get in better shape.  They are willing to add fruit and vegetables to their diet.  TheyÂ’re willing to drink more water.  TheyÂ’re even willing to walk once in a while.  But ask them to pass on the sour cream topping for their baked potato and what do they say?  “A little bit isnÂ’t going to hurt.”  Say that every time youÂ’re just eating a little bit of something bad for you, or every time you miss an exercise session and thereÂ’s the reason why your butt sags to the ground.  No, you donÂ’t need to cut tasty foods out of your diet completely.  Fine, put a dollop of sour cream on your potato this time, but no Death By Chocolate for dessert and you better damn sure use skim milk on your Great Grains cereal in the morning.  Otherwise I have no sympathy for your sorry ass, and whatÂ’s worse, I have no respect for you.

Am I an ass hole?  Perhaps.  Is that why I'm writing this?  No.  I'm writing it  because I'm tired.  I'm tired of listening to you complain about yourself, tired of watching you do practically nothing about it, and most of all I'm tired of seeing you unhappy and of thinking about how much of my life I'm going to have to live without you because you'll die of a heart attack when you're 58, if you're lucky.

- ATM