I Know My Weight For The First Time Since High School

I had body image issues during adolescence. Shit, I still have body image issues now, but they're the humdrum problems with getting fat. Come to think of it, it was the same back then, just balled up with other issues like growing hair in places like my armpits and genitals and trying for hours to see if I could suck my own dick. That so needs its own separate blog post.

But getting fat was a bigger, weirder issue when I was in high school. I had been skinny as a kid, and I wanted to maintain that as my body underwent the changes into adulthood. Not just as best as I can; I wanted to stay at the same weight I was before going through puberty. If it meant getting taller and having a deeper voice, I would just eat less. My eyeball test to see if I was watching my weight was going to the bathroom, taking off my shirt, and inhaling as far as possible. Ever since I could remember I was able to see my ribcage if I breathed in. If I could do that after all these body changes, I wouldn't feel like my world was crashing around me.

I don't know how long I obsessed over my weight, but at some point I realized that what I was doing was madness. I still hated puberty because it would take me from the physical self I had always known. But I grew up learning about anorexia and bulimia, and I didn't want to be seized by these psychosomatic demons. Losing control of my weight was one thing; losing control of my mind by refusing to accept reality, however, was my greater fear. So at some point in high school, somewhere around the time I got a tad more serious about my studies, I just decided to stop obsessing over my weight. The last time I weighed myself, I was around 125 pounds.

The one big thing I stopped wasn't looking at my ribcage in the bathroom mirror; that I still did, if with decreasing frequency as I got older. But another thing I did was check my weight on the scale in the bathroom constantly. I knew that those scary, weird anorexics and bulimics checked their weight all the time. I didn't want to be one of those people, so at some point, maybe when I turned 18, I stopped checking my weight. Finding out my number, I figured, would only send me into a tizzy if it was too high to my liking.

Fast-forward to, oh, March 17, 2011. It would be around my 14th month of working out. I use the elliptical mostly, and it has this feature where you punch in your weight so it could tailor its computerized regimen to best fit your needs. I liked where I was right now because what my age is and what I thought my weight was (150 pounds) are the defaults, so all I need to do is hit "Options" and then press "OK" four times fast as it gives me the age and then the weight.

But I knew it was a lie. There's no way I could just be 150 lbs. because being to hit that "OK" button like I'm a trigger-happy general trying to launch a nuclear weapon in Dr. Strangelove was too convenient. And then I thought that my self-imposed ban from knowing my weight is going a bit too far at this point. I'm 35 and need to start changing my habits so I could live a long life and ensure life to my years. I can't do that without knowing my precise weight. So, after many years of rolling it around in my head, I decide that this is time to finally know how fat I am.

I thought it'd be in early December, when I had to weigh in for this experiment. But when I finally faced the music, the music was in metric. But I was fairly certain that I would know when I came in for my physical Monday afternoon.

I thought up a guess. What the hell, I'll go by what I punch in the elliptical: 150 pounds. I'd take 175; that doesn't sound too big for a guy my size.

When the nurse told me to step onto the scale, I, like in the previous weigh-in for the experiment, closed my eyes and took a breath. But quicker this time -- this time I knew I needed to know. And the scale didn't deke me out by giving me kilograms. Oh, it gave me good ol' American pounds -- 164.5 of them.

Wow. Just ... wow. I'm 165 fucking pounds. Honestly, I don't think I'm obese. I am fat, fat like My Fucking Father. But I'm not too bent out of shape ... even though I am out of shape. Now I can't just blow through the Options the next time I'm on the elliptical. But at least I can be more accurate about things.

Geez ... 165 lbs. Forty pounds in 17 years. Just to let you know, up until 8th grade or so I was under 100. And by the way, I weighed in at 74.5 kg at that experiment, which translates to just over 164. I've been gaining weight, and I feel like I've been eating a lot, especially in the last week. I need to exercise more.

And one more thing: I don't check to see if I can see my ribs in the bathroom mirror anymore. Haven't done that in a long time. I think the last time I did, I couldn't, and I just got all sad.