Heavy issues

The alarm rang loudly. Muttering to myself, I snuggled into my pillow trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep. In ten minutes, the alarm rang again, shattering my dream, and making me get up, grumbling. I walked sleepily to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and was just turning the hot water tap on when I noticed something in a corner of the bathroom. I stepped on it, looked down, and screamed.

My brother came rushing in, cricket bat in hand, ready to take on the slimy reptile that he assumed must have scared me. Instead, he swallowed a laugh, and tried to keep his face sympathetic, as he saw me standing on the new weighing machine my mom had bought just the previous day. It took me ten whole minutes to recover from the shock of seeing my weight. How could I weigh so much? The machine (which I now considered my mortal enemy) indicated that I was exactly ten kilos overweight, and I immediately decided it was faulty. I can’t be that fat, I told myself (I hoped desperately I wasn’t!). I thought I could hear my brother laughing as he went back to his room. The beast, I thought angrily, taking my anger out on him.

I knew I had to do something before I started bouncing on the road like a rubber ball, and considered going on a diet. The trouble was- I’m a total sucker when it comes to food (who isn’t?). Plus, I was very lazy, and to me, exercise was as painful as leg waxing, which at least I had to do only once a month. After a few days of running on the treadmill in the gym (which left me panting and gasping like an asthmatic patient) I’d given it up.

To make matters worse, one of my cousins, who was slim, tall and very pretty, decided to come and stay with us for a few days, just when I was nicely sulking, and blaming the dairy industry for making all that lovely cheese, butter and chocolate that had tempted me and driven me to obesity. Just what I need, I thought sarcastically, to give my self-confidence a boost.

She breezed in, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, looking like a poster girl.

“So how are things going?” she asked me, after dinner one day. “Your brother was telling me you were upset about something.”

Damn my brother, I thought with gritted teeth. He always got a kick out of embarrassing me.

She clicked her tongue sympathetically, as if she understood. “Listen, it’s normal to put on weight at this age,” she said. Easy for her to say, her thighs didn’t wobble when she walked. When I didn’t reply, she said, “How about letting me help you?”

“Know anyone who can do a liposuction?” I asked. She let out a hoot of laughter and said, “No, no. I’m going to help you lose weight the traditional way.”

I groaned. “I thought technology has advanced far enough to help us lose weight in less painful ways.” I said. She shook her head, and said in an all-knowing voice, “Trust me, this is the best way. Come on, don’t be so lazy. Don’t you want to catch the eye of that cute guy in your class?”

“I was rather hoping to dazzle him with my brilliance,” I replied.

“Guys always go for looks first,” she said, knowingly. Yeah, she’d know, I thought. She probably spent a lot of time beating them off with a stick. I agreed, and she slapped my palm, as if striking a deal.

I was woken up rudely the next day by her banging on my door. I looked out the window; it was still dark. I opened the door, and tried to focus my sleepy eyes. She was wearing snug tennis shorts, and a T-shirt, and looked bright and awake as if it was 8 o’clock in the morning.

“Go to hell,” I muttered, my brain still half-asleep. Fifteen minutes later (it was precisely 5:30 in the morning), we were running on the deserted road, or more accurately, I was lumbering along, while she jogged gracefully. My energy and resolve lasted for fifteen minutes, before I fell against a pole, gasping for breath, my tongue hanging out like a dog.

“What are you trying to do, murder me?” I managed to ask my cousin, between gasps. My heart was pumping like a 100 Watt motor, and every muscle in my body screamed out with pain. I wondered if I might die of sheer exhaustion. I noticed with envy that she simply looked a shade tired, and her face glowed from the exercise. I, on the other hand, had sweat running down my face in buckets, till it formed a small puddle on the road.

“You can’t give up now, we’ve just started,” she said, gearing up for another lap. I would have sworn, except that there wasn’t any breath left in me. But I gritted my teeth, braced myself like an Olympic athlete, and started jogging once more. I didn’t want her to think I was weak.

I somehow managed to drag myself back home after her, without needing an ambulance. I fell heavily on the sofa, and emptied an entire bottle of water. I shuddered at the thought of having to do this everyday. At least, I could look forward to a good, heavy breakfast.

“Here,” my cousin said, setting down the bowl of soup in front of me, with the flourish of a cordon bleu chef. I shut my eyes, and brought the image of that cute guy into my head to help me show some willpower. It will get better, I told myself.

The nightmare continued for two weeks. I felt like I was at boot camp. My cousin took ‘my case’, as she called it, very seriously. She made me jog everyday; made sure I ate only the food that was bland, tasteless and ‘healthy’ and deprived me of my afternoon nap. I almost cried when she told me I couldn’t touch chocolate for a month. I had to eat a lot of vegetables (yuck!) some of which I’d never seen in my life. She was a slave-driver.

One of those days, a little voice in me, the one that had horns and wore red, started wondering if there was any way I could kill her without leaving behind any evidence. But then, the other voice (which I really hate), with the halo and wings, reminded me that she was doing this for me, and not for herself. I sighed and tried to stuff the cabbage on my plate down my throat.

But, surprisingly, I did begin to notice a difference in myself. I lost a lot of weight, and it was a relief really, not having to struggle into those size 32 jeans. I no longer had to tolerate my brother’s snide remarks. I became more confident, and best of all, I finally did draw up enough courage to talk to that cute guy in my class. Only, I found out that he was so dumb, when I asked him, “How about a date?” he said “huh? It’s the 15^th, I think.”

Oh well, you can’t win them all.