Weighing In

A few years back I came across the Facebook profile of a long lost primary school friend and added him. He accepted my request and I messaged him straight after.

"Hi buddy! Remember me?"

"Yea. You are the skinny Indian guy from primary school".

He could have said intelligent. He could have said fun, but of all the innumerable adjectives the English language afforded him, he chose skinny. Though, there is a touch of truth to his unforgivable recollection. Ok not a touch of truth. It was true. I was skinny. Like so skinny my parents considered donating me to the local hospital as they could not afford a skeleton.  Though it never really bothered me. I was happy to flash my rib cages, proudly calling them, my steel body. Besides puberty was yet to struck its regrettable blow and girls were creatures you stayed away from.

And when puberty did strike, it started to matter. My first investment was in a pair of 5 kilogram dumbells that my mum said looked heavier than me. Thanks to them and a unending lot of bicep curls, I would get my first biceps that stood out like rocks on a stick. I used to be so proud of them I would flash it at my younger cousin brother, who skinny like me, would open his mouth in awe. Though it was not as effective with my cousin's female friend whom I tried to impress by climbing the neighborhood mango shirtless. Regardless, they have been and remain my second favourite muscle group in my body.

Unfortunately, the rest of my body just refused to budge. From hundreds of fake pushups with the police cadets progressing to half fake pushups in the softball team and somewhat fake pushups in the army, the body just remained the same. It did not help that I did a lot of the only exercise I excelled at, running, and the only gain from them were legs so slim and shapely that my female friends remarked they were jealous of my legs. If not for the hair on them, I stay convinced I would have had a shot in a K pop girl group.

However, I realised I could afford to slack of anymore. Suddenly, a hot muscular body with slab like chests and 6 pacs were the rage and the chest hair I had put all my money on as the ultimate symbol of male masculinity just went out of fashion. Worse still, every mother's son seemed to have a good body. 12 year old boys were hitting the gym and building biceps that weighed as much as me at their age. I had a lot of catching up to do.

So I hit the gym. Three times a week, brandishing a towel and energised by a glass of protein powder, I would make my entrance into the university gym of frail male egos. Life became all about calories, repetitions, overloading and muscles. I would do one set, make a stop at the mirror and with all my fellow male comrades, observe our bloated muscles with masculine pride and revel in the dreams of all the women who would approach me like in the Axe commercials. I felt them become bigger and the future looked brighter.

Though after a few months, I observed something else that was also coming more and more into prominence. A belly. Apparently all those calories that I took could not find enough space in my muscles and so they went to the place where there was plenty of it. And they just stayed there after. School ended, gym ended and job took over. More time was spent in front of the computer. All those hard earned muscles disappeared from lack of use, but the belly, it remained.

And it remains to now. Its just there, jutting out without any specific purpose, tightening pants that were once loose. Running, sit ups, all doesn't seem to work. When my mother set herself on a personal mission to fatten me up so that I would not look like an underage, skinny boy when the time of marriage comes (somewhat like a butcher fattening up a chicken so it sells fast), all the extra calories just kept adding there while the rest of the body remained like it had always been. 

So I decided to blame genetics and accept reality as it was. I was never going to gain weight. I was never going to match up to those men on the streets with huge bulging biceps who muscles reminded me I had not eaten KFC in a while. I was never going to be a hot bod. What I had to do was to use the same mean world with its unlimited resources of unabashed personal branding to put myself across as the catch of the day. So all I had to do when someone came up to me and told me I was skinny, was to smile and point out,

"Sorry. You are mistaken. I am not skinny"

"I am lean".