Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I propose amending that to “death, taxes, and obesity.”
We all face the dreaded reality. Past early adulthood, for reasons that are endlessly debated yet little understood, most of us start gaining weight. A battle begins, from which there is no escape, no respite, no letup, and victory is when you hit the status quo. Put simply, in the present day and age, gaining weight is easy; getting rid of it is hard.
For me, the battle began the day I landed in America. Stepping off the plane on a crisp December afternoon in Atlanta, I caught a shuttle and reached the university town. A cousin, with whom I stayed the first few days, graciously extended a cup of tea. Make that a very large cup of tea, American size. Laden with whole milk and ample quantity of sugar—the kind I craved for but never got in India. Sugar was pricey and rationed out in strictly monitored teaspoonfuls in our household. The concept of whole milk had become a distant memory the moment we shut down our cowshed and outsourced milk delivery to either Devuamma, a local small-scale dairy owner, or the impersonal state-backed Milma cooperative. By adding a copious amount of water, both sources ensured our milk was quite a ways away from being “whole”; we were in no danger of gaining weight from milk fat.
The rest of the diet was equally sparse, and vegetarian. Being active was built into the daily routine—my brothers walked to their school two miles away, mother walked a similar distance to the bus stop, and I biked halfway to the campus before boarding the college bus. And it showed: we were lean, without a hint of fat on us. A family photo taken before I departed to the U.S. captured the situation well. This picture would later play a crucial role in motivating me to take the fat combat head on.
Back in the U.S., the whole milk tea was just the beginning. Devoid of cooking skills, my diet initially consisted of sliced bread, jam, butter, apples, whole milk, Swiss Miss, coke, and Mars bars. A few month into this diet though, I rapidly grew in girth and in short order was forced to shop for bigger-sized clothes. The move to a regular diet of rice and vegetables resulted in near disaster, as I have written in my Kitchen on Fire. My biomarkers nose-dived. On doctor’s advice, I began a running regimen that was at best inconsistent. Worries about finishing graduate school and landing a job outweighed concerns about the accumulating kilos.
Marriage further tipped the balance in favor of padding on the pounds. To get back on a diet of tasty cuisine was a welcome relief after years in the culinary wilderness. My wife urged exercise, but “I don’t have the time,” was my refrain. I knew I hit the lowest point (or the highest, depending on the point of view), when I went to Kerala for a visit. I was puffed up and rotund, inviting compliments from all around: “Ippo nalla thadi okke vachu nannayittirikkundallo!” (You have put on weight and are looking good!).
By then I had landed a steady job and was on a normal office goer schedule. So, back in the States after the visit, I began a more focused effort to get matters under control. In a couple of years, a combination of regular jogging and moderation at the dinner table helped shed the excess pounds. I knew this because, on my next visit to Kerala, my appearance evoked instant disapproval and deep concern. One older lady, with a new found interest in my welfare, asked: “Ayyo monu valla maharogam vallathum vanno?” (Oh son, did you come down with a terrible illness?).
Now, let me be honest. I am going overboard describing my attempts to control weight as a struggle. At the heaviest, I might have been 12-15 pounds over my ideal weight. My point is that shedding those extra pounds took a focused effort and keeping it down has taken a surprisingly high amount of work.
I have the numbers to prove it. Take a look at the chart below. It depicts a line graph of 171 weight measurements I took over two years and three months, from February 2013 to April 2015. The weights were taken on the same scale under identical conditions. The blue wiggly line plots the weight in pounds. The red flat line is the average weight over the period. I have excluded the weight level (how many pounds) from the chart because that information is not important to the story; only the trend is. The range of fluctuation is narrow. Most of the wiggly line is contained within a range of 4 pounds.
By all appearances, the weight has held pretty steady. Or has it? Look at the next chart. Everything else in this chart stays the same as in the previous chart, except the red line. The red line is now the linear trend “fitted” to the data. The line has a slight upward slope, meaning the weight is creeping up1. Not by much, under half-pound over the period, but up, not down!
Now, all this is rather bland. What is striking, and the main point let me reiterate, is the high amount of effort that has gone into keeping the weight steady. Typically, I would say, five days a week of vigorous exercise, plus careful attention to eating. Yet, the trend is up, not down. Perhaps this bears out the notion that as you get older, you have to work harder and eat even less to keep the weight down.
Setting aside the effects of aging, none of this was remotely necessary while growing up in Kerala. The environment and the circumstances almost dictated one remain thin. No extra effort was needed. How things have changed (for more on this, read my Summer in Kerala).
The catalysts needed to pull off long-term weight control are motivation and tenacity. For me, these came soon after I returned from that India trip during which I was roundly complimented for my plumpness. My wife was rummaging through some old documents in a box that hadn't been opened after I had packed it when I moved from the University to take up my new job in Washington. Perhaps she was fishing for love letters from my former girlfriends but instead she found the family picture taken at the time I left for graduate studies in the U.S.2
“Is this you?” she asked, pointing to my former slimmer self.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said. “Why are you going through my files?”
She ignored my question and continued to study the black and white photograph.
“Man,” she said, “you have gained lot of weight!”
I pinned the photograph on my bulletin board and joined the battle to win the gaining game.
1 The fitted line is y = mx + b, where x is the measurement period from 1 through 171, y is the corresponding weight in pounds, m is the slope coefficient and b is the y-intercept. The estimated m=0.0021 with a t-value of 1.91. The R-squared for the estimated equation is 0.021.↩
2 Meanwhile, the love letters are in a box labeled "Utility Bills." The secret is safe here because I place the same low odds on her reading a footnote in my blog as on her opening a box labeled "Utility Bills."↩
