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Well,
I finally did it. I lost 60 pounds. Actually, I lost it last year, but
haven’t mentioned it in print for fear those pounds might come back
and find me, like homing pigeons. Big, chubby homing pigeons.
People
ask me all the time how I managed to lose nearly 30% of my body weight
and I can’t resist screwing with their minds. “I’m doing the
Bhutan Death March Workout,” I’ll say. “It’s the new Taebo!”
or, “I’m sticking to a balanced regimen of Binging and Purging.”
Freaks ‘em out every time.
I
lie to them because no one wants to hear the truth: I simply ate less. I
got this radical advice from my neighbor, Carrie Peacock, who is a
personal chef, dietician and all around smart cookie, pardon the pun.
“Losing weight is actually very simple,” she said to me, “it’s
just like following a budget.”
Now
we all know how easy that is. Obviously, I’d been living beyond my
seams.
For
me, it wasn’t even a matter of needing to exercise more. I already
worked out several times a week, but my muscles were well insulated by a
protective fat coating, sort of the biological equivalent of bubble
wrap.
Carrie
suggested I look at what factors trigger my overeating. For the most
part, I was a stress eater, but I also knew that I ate when I was
depressed. Or happy. Or bored. Or because it was a day of the week that
ended in “y.”
Something
had to change.
Now,
a waist is a terrible thing to mind, but to do it I had to use something
I never thought I’d need as an adult: Algebra. Keeping track of my
calories was just like all those high school word problems-you know, the
kind about two trains leaving Detroit-but instead they’re about food:
“If
Gayboy A eats less than 10 grams of fat daily, but his only upper body
workout consists of blow-drying his hair, and Gayboy B works out every
day, but the only vegetables he eats are the olives in martinis, which
one is more likely to get laid?”
Answer:
The one with the bigger... Duh.
(Incidentally,
one of the major advantages of dropping inches from your waist is the
perception of adding inches elsewhere, if you get what I mean.)
Me,
I lost eight inches off my waist slowly and sensibly over the course of
a year and I didn’t complain once. That’s right. I complained about
6,000 times. (And that was just the first day.) I may look and feel
better now, but I have not become one of those irritating types who say,
“Oh, I’d rather eat an apple than a cookie!” Yeah, if the apple
were in the mouth of a roasted pig, perhaps. And my sensible meals still
look like kiddy portions to me.
So
I completely understand those of you out there who have rejected the Do
or Diet mentality and accept your bodies as they are. My favorites are
those guys who roll their t-shirts up over their bellies on hot days.
They may look like they’re in their ninth month, but that doesn’t
stop them. You gotta love that.
But
I simply can’t operate that way. I’ve always believed that
achievement, not acceptance, builds self-esteem. I think that’s one of
the reasons why we have trouble as a community deciding what Gay Pride
should be about. (That, and the fact that the girls want it to be Lilith
Fair and the boys want it to be the White Party.)
As
far as I can see there’s nothing about being gay in and of itself to
be proud of. It’s what we do as gay people that matters (and not just
in the bedroom). Certainly there are real-life heroes among us, like
Oregon’s own Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau, the couple fighting the
state of Florida’s ban on gay adoption. And then there are people like
me, whose major accomplishment is managing to look cute in a tank top.
It’s not much of an achievement, I admit, but it’s my own little
personal victory and I’m pleased with it nonetheless.
So
as you march and wave a rainbow flag at Pride this year, I ask you to
think about the words of Oseola McCarthy, the functionally illiterate
washerwoman who gave her life’s savings of $625,000 to Southern
Mississippi University back in 1995. When asked about her astonishing
act of generosity, the 87-year-old simply said, “Well, if you want to
feel proud of yourself, then do something to be proud of.”
And
that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc.
Despite
his new eating habits, Marc Acito is still an excellent dinner guest. He
can reached at MarcAcito@attbi.com.
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