Category Archives: Apropos of nothing

Fat – damn!

fat

 

For all my adult life I have had a cooperative metabolism. Coupled with a fairly active lifestyle my good ol’ metabolism has allowed me to eat and drink to excess and not worry about buttons popping off of shirts, belts reaching their final holes, watch straps acting like tourniquets or collars slowly strangling me.

That’s not to say that my physical appearance hasn’t change over the years. I’ve certainly thickened, but this has been a function of aging, maturing and growing out of my gangly teenage self. But it’s been slow.

Over the past twenty plus years my trouser waist band has crawled its way from 32 inches up to a respectable 34 inch span. My neck measurement has gone from a scrawny 15 inches to a marginally more acceptable 16 ½ inches. Through time, my suits have gone from a 40 to a 42 Tall and generally speaking I have been pretty happy with the changes. My metabolism has kept me reasonably trim and fit looking, and saved me hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars in wardrobe replacement costs.

And then the paradigm shift.

It’s fitting that I don’t know exactly what is a paradigm shift. Because neither do I know why my Oh So reliable metabolism has abruptly changed its modus operendi.

What I do know is that overnight I have developed a paunch. Sometime between breakfast and lunch my pecs have turned into breasts and that before dinner my trousers became impossible to button up.

I feel betrayed.

And confused.

How did this happen?

I will admit to retiring from a long and satisfying career a short 10 months ago. But retirement hasn’t turned me somnambulant. I have remained active, walking my dog up to 6 km a day. Playing tennis (on occasion), running (jogging? stumbling?) regularly and taking over domestic responsibilities for the house. And let me tell you that cleaning, vacuuming, shopping and coordinating the myriad of details involved in home operations have increased the awe in which I hold my mother and wife and consumed more energy than I ever could have imagined.

And I’m pretty sure my caloric intake hasn’t increased…..that much. Or perhaps I hope my caloric intake hasn’t increased that much. After a couple of months of eating my way through the snack aisle of my local grocery store significant efforts have been made to ban chips, cookies and the like from all of our kitchen cupboards. Further, my alcohol consumption, frighteningly caloric, has been halved and much more closely monitored by She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Well perhaps the alcohol being halved is exaggerated, but everything else is true.

Balanced meals are the norm, and I have been pretty consistent in eating the veggies SWMBO puts on my plate.

But still I’m getting fat.

Previously unimaginable sympathies for the overweight have surfaced in my thinking. Packaging data on foodstuffs are being vociferously read. Structural integrity of furniture is being examined closely and springs and struts on my car being replaced.

Worst of all I have had to order new trousers, replacing all the constrictive pairs I have lived with for years. With much looser waist bands.

This new state-of-affairs is going to force me to make a bucket full of unanticipated decisions. Do I, for example, buy a new belt that goes over, under or across my brand new pot belly?

When, I have to wonder, will this alarming and expanding trend cease?

 

“Blue jeans crying in the rain”

Today started badly.

I retired an old pair of blue jeans this morning. Retired, in this case, being a euphemism for binning, ditching, heaving or throwing out. It was a sad day because this particular pair of jeans had been with me for about 15 years. They carried with them a lot of history; successes, failures and much of what life has to throw at you. Now don’t get me wrong, it was time. I am not of the generation that buys new jeans with holes and tears; I just can’t get comfortable with the idea that my trews will let in more breezes than they keep out. Nor am I likely to regress to wearing patched jeans, as when a child. Iron on patches that, if Mum had time, were affixed to the inside of the leg, and reinforced with a fine line of stiches. Or, when she didn’t have time were hastily slapped on the exterior of the hole and ironed so fiercely that the patch itself was afraid to fall off. So when my old buddies finally developed that wear hole along the thigh I knew it was time. Nor was this sad event unexpected. These old soldiers were like a second skin; they were a perfect fit even after a wash, somehow understanding through the years that my belly was larger, my arse wider and my patience the only thing thinner about me. They, for more than a decade, were the epitome of comfort. But, their good service had worn them down.  They were paper thin, they were tired and I knew it was but a matter of time.

What surprises me is that I am the only one who will mourn their loss. My delightful wife, not recognizing just how much a man can identify with his jeans, has campaigned for years to bedeck me in newfangled designer labels. She wants jeans that go with a sports coat, with a roll neck sweater, and with a pair of penny loafers. I want jeans that I could wear whenever, and with whatever was clean. She winced every time I pulled those jeans on. My daughters, giggling behind open palms, would whisper things like camel-toe, cowboy, grand-dad and worse. When pressed they would admit to preferences for jeans that came from high end shops with names that remind me of perfume or those fellows that embroider their names on women’s blouses. Even my son will not be saddened by their passing. But that’s because he’s a man, and won’t notice and, if he did, could care less. That at least I can understand.

Perhaps the dog will miss them. I gotta figure that after 15 years those old jeans must have accumulated a bunch of really good smells. I know where some of them might have come from, but refuse to comment any further on that.

I reckon this is just a small piece of life’s jigsaw. A microcosm, a definition, a metaphor. Or, on the other hand, it could just be that the damn jeans finally wore out.

Pity though, I really liked those jeans.