Out, damn'd fat

A funny thing happened on my to losing weight. I began to understand something I'd failed to understand before.

Facebook friends, fellow church members and family know that I've lost a significant amount of weight recently. My wife decided to start Weight Watchers, and because I needed to lose some weight to be able to fit into my clothes, as well as try to have an effect on my blood pressure, I decided I would follow the program as well.

I've gone well beyond my original goal, having lost about 20 percent of my starting weight. New clothes have been purchased, which was not part of the original plan, and blood pressure medication has been cut drastically, even more than I'd hoped.

You would think that nothing remains but to celebrate. But I've noticed that while I'm dressing, I cannot fail to see it. The fat.

Oh, sure, I can see how skinny I am -- I've not weighed this little since the '80s. But when I see myself in the mirror my eyes are not drawn to the now prominent clavicles in my shoulders but to those resistent little pockets of underlying fat somewhat lower down on the anatomy.

Now, I'm not obsessing about the remaining fat. I have no desire to try to eradicate it from my body. In fact, I'm trying to adjust my intake to maintain my weight or even to put on a couple of pounds so my newly purchased pants will fit better.

But I better understand why some folks become obsessive about those remaining pounds.

During my time as a pastor, I was privileged to minister to college students for a time, and I encountered a couple of young women who believed they were "fat" and unable to attract boys because they were "fat."

Later, while attending a country church located not too far from an eating disorders clinic, I had the joy of knowing a couple of young women who found our church and attended while being treated at the clinic.

None of these women were by any sane measure obese or even what I would consider overweight. All were attractive and drew stares from young men as they passed by. The two women from the clinic were as thin as models, most probably, from what I knew about the clients of that facility, because when they looked at themselves in a mirror, they saw the fat, not the beauty the rest of the world saw.

I had profiled that clinic in a story I wrote while doing my journalism studies, along with some other eating disorder clinics, in an effort to understand the "why" behind the problem and as a way of doing something useful with journalism. The story would be published in a college newspaper and would have the chance to reach young women just like those I'd dealt with as a pastor.

The clinic director was blunt and attacked me almost as much as she helped me during my interview with her. She pointed out that I was a male, which meant I didn't suffer the societal stigma of having to be thin. She pointed out that I was thin and had probably never had a weight problem in my life.

I had slipped in to my 40s and was, in fact, actually beginning to have to struggle with my weight, though I exercised enough for it to not be a huge problem, and when I told her that, she scoffed at me. I didn't and couldn't understand, she declared, and I was just another do-gooder journalist without a clue.

I did have the opportunity to interview one of her clients, who did try to help me understand. Again, this was an attractive young woman who simply did not see what I saw. And so I really didn't get it.

Now, a couple of decades later, I have an inkling of what they were trying to tell me. And I can see how easy it would be to slip over that line. The pressures on men have increased, though not to the level they are on women. Six-pack abs are all the rage. Dweebs were featured in a reality show, but that only lasted a short while, and the hunks continue to dominate the bachelor shows, one of which has been on way longer than I ever thought it would be.

Weight carries seriously medical consequences, and those need to be dealt with. But we need to grow beyond the concept that only the slender are worthy or "hot." That beauty has more to do with the number of pounds we carry than the people we are.

I appreciate it when people tell me how good I'm looking, but really I'm growing a bit weary with the comments. Did I look that bad before?

And a part of my mind thinks, "Yeah, but if you saw me without a shirt, you'd see the fat, too. And then you wouldn't think I looked so good." And that's a place I don't want to go.

I constantly remind myself that I lost weight to feel better, and I do. My blood pressure's down; my back doesn't hurt as much. I'm able to go for a jog without feeling beaten at the end of the route. And if I gain a few pounds and notice they've decided to take up residence on my waist, I'll learn to live with them.