The cost of being fat

You have often wondered about the time it takes to shed all that excess weight. You wonder if 6 months from now or a year from now you will be your old svelte self and be able to move around that wedding without being conscious of your big backside. You must have wondered how long and how many more months you need to go through the rigmarole of that treadmill and dumb bells, how many more months of eating to a plan, how many months of pain and watchfulness before being fit and being the right weight becomes a way of life. Months, years, decades pass by without your goal in sight. In the meanwhile you swing between periods of fitness buzz where motivation levels are high and depression where even the thought of going to the gym is unbearable. Your children were little when you started putting on weight, you r children grew up and left the family home and you are still panting and sweating. You have only lost a couple of kilograms of that fat while life has passed you by (this is not necessarily a bad thing). Now your body has become a way a life; not the body or the fitness levels you wanted but the body that has become. You still wonder as you argue vigorously over all the technical issues of weight loss and good health and find yourself amazed at the amount of information you have and yet you have not been able to use it to your end.
While you have been wondering about the time you spend on panting and puffing and wiping away the sweat, your pockets are leaking quietly over the years, so quietly that you don’t even notice. Over a period of let’s say a decade, you have renewed you gym membership at least 8 times (let’s also assume for 12k a year) bought endless pair of shoes (for matters of calculation, let assume two pairs a year at 3k a pair) that you need a maybe 3 or four pairs that you want because they are so attractive. You have also along the way bought countless other accessories like an Mp3 player (again for purposes of the cost of being fat let’s assume the cost at 3.5k for a Sony Mp3). Now since we have considered a period of 10 years, we shall assume you have bought at least 3 Mp3 players. Other accessories include sweat bands, socks, gym towels, water bottles, exercises mats, gloves, caps, gym bag, exercise clothes, special foods that takes care of nutrition but doesn’t add to your already existing weight (all hogwash but what the hell, let’s try it). You have also invested in an exercise bike, a pair of dumb bells, ankle weights, skipping rope and stuff that is easy to do at home as well as exercising in the gym. Now catch your breath and calculate the amount of equipment and your hard-earned money that you have spent in the effort for weight loss. I won’t be surprised if you can’t stop catching your breath. The gym membership alone has cost you close to 1 lakh rupees. 1 lakh rupees at 9% rate of interest would have fetched you 9k per year and a total of 72k in 10 years. But let’s not get on that path at all. Let’s stick to money that you have spent so far in VAIN!
Feel like weeping, don’t you? Because you have not only totalled the costs but you also feel totalled. Cost + effort + time, add all this and you could have been a millionaire looking a million bucks, but you have spent like a millionaire and look none the better for it.
Gentlemen and ladies, its time to stop this charade. I give you 8 months, if you were really serious about shedding all that baggage and fitting in the air plane beautifully (where you just slide in and not wriggle until all your layers are in)then you will do it. Don’t spend on memberships (oh alright maybe for 1 year, but that’s it) get the right pair of shoes and don’t bother with the rest of the paraphernalia (it doesn’t help you lose weight only makes you feel like it) and start walking. Get that lazy (I say lazy because you can’t be bothered with your diet and exercise seriously enough to stop yo-yoing) @$$ and start pounding the walkway, sidewalk, treadmill and show me that yes you can lose it!