Borrowed Body Time

by Aaron Freeman

I am a forty six year old father of two wearing a halter-top. I am standing before a mirror in a t-shirt I have cut off just below my pectorals to reveal my flat, lean and almost rippled abdomen. My exposed triceps are strong and well defined; my deltoids are hard and shredded.

This is all new to me, and strange.

I have spent most of the last decade, until seven months ago, looking to put it kindly, “prosperous” Hell if that’s the euphemism I was down right wealthy.

Then came the Atkins diet; I lost thirty pounds in a month. I went from 216 to 185 pounds primarily because Atkins let me lose weight while over eating. The pounds seemed to fall off. The change in my body was so stunning it persuaded me that anything was possible. Two months, some sensible dieting and many reps in the weight room later. I was tight and buff, and something else. I was acutely aware of what happened to Oprah. She lost, I think literally a ton, was svelte and hot, had a private chef and trainer and got fat again.

I know my current body, my chiseled, fit; rippling, hot bod will probably be like Brigadoon. Rising to glory for a season only to be swallowed again by mounds of pasta, pesto and Parmesan.
That’s why I am in a halter-top. If I have but a few months to wear a hot physique I will wear it with audacity. I will strut large while my waist is small.

I walk into the kitchen to give my family the first look at dad the hunk. My older daughter giggles and leaves the room. My younger shrieks, “Look, its Britney Spears.”

I walked to the corner store, yes to get some brown rice for dinner but mostly as an excuse to cruise the block showing off my lean torso.

Of course the street is empty. There are always people sitting on their front steps, talking ,working on their plants, hanging out. But tonight its an oil painting. Then I hear, “Who’s that hot guy?” It’s my neighbor Pamela, a very attractive young woman who knows just what to say to an old man with a new frame. We see each other often and she knows how long and hard I’ve worked. Oh you’ve lost…” “Oh you look…” she flatters. I bask and blush she continues on her way. I am delirious. Of course I know she’s my friend and just said what I obviously begged to hear. But I didn’t care

My temporary body is a Rorschach test for my friends especially with the halter-top. . One friend saw me and noted it had taken her daughter a whole year to regain the weight she’d lost on Atkins. Waiting outside my kid’s school another parent, a mom pulled me over and whispered earnestly, “Have you been sick?” On seeing my bare belly outfit my best friend, a long time body builder himself, was silent then, weeks later said I’d looked like a male “Hoochie Mama.” To my gay friends it meant I’d come out.

But Oprah hovers over my every dumbbell rep and stands broadly behind every compliment.

I love positive feedback, and health and narcissism. But I love my mother’s pound cake too; in large chunks please with her home made vanilla ice cream on top. Statistically- statistically I don’t even want to think of the percentage of people who lose weight quickly on gimmick diets then within a year are bigger than they were before.

Even now, as I eat brown rice with a boneless, skinless chicken breast, I have a second spoon of rice, a big spoon. I tell myself I’m training and need the extra calories and that I’ll work extra tomorrow and burn it off. I’ve started lying to myself about food. If they notice my family says nothing; they assume I know what I’m doing. They can’t see that I’m already loosing control of my appetite. My fat cells are like aliens in a video game only when they will win is unknown.

We just finished a group of Jewish holidays. I gained four pounds. My abs are still visible, if the light is at the right angle

But gimmick diet detractors notwithstanding it was a grand, vainglorious summer. And though I will probably have to endure countless embarrassing questions about what happened to my great lean body. Though I may spend years beating myself up as a weak –willed loser, a fat weak-willed loser.
I still proclaim it is better to have lost and loved it than never to have lost at all.

© 2002 Aaron Freeman