Wading in the Shallow End

MOOD | tired
CRAVING FOR | four-pack abs; let's not overreach for six
RANDOM | loving cafe world in facebook




When I graduated from Ateneo, I weighed around 125 pounds. It says so in my first resume, right beside Age (20) and Citizenship (Filipino). I think I just gained around 10 pounds during my entire stay in college. I have this distinct memory of getting assigned in the lightest weight division for the sparring finals of my first year judo P.E. class, and I couldn't have been greater than 115 pounds then. Of course, I wanted to gain some weight; I had an inverted triangle for a face back then, and it wasn't fun looking like a walking ad for Vicks. Unfortunately, no matter how much carbs I ingested (I was munching on pancit canton... sandwiched between slices of bread), all the gain I could muster was a measly 10 pounds. The wonders of a college guy's physiology.

Six months ago, nobody would believe that I once had a three-sided polygon for a head. It was unimaginable. Four years after stepping out of college, I was sporting a "healthy" 145 pounds. Not bad if I were 5' 9". Those pounds would have been fantastic. But alas, the gods in the sky decided that Cherifer should outdate me by around 20 years, so no, 145 pounds wasn't an ideal weight. According to this site:

My Height + My Weight = Borderline Overweight

Needless to say, it wasn't a pleasant feeling. Everything about me seemed to double: my tummy, my face, and most annoying of all, my chin. Yes, I was quite sensitive about my double chin. It took years of practice to find that perfect camera angle, one that would give the illusion of a tight jaw and a distinctive jawline. Any shots that showcased the blasphemous folds would immediately find themselves in the digital bin.

Of course, I tried to lose some weight. But no matter how many times I skipped on that extra rice or slashed my eating time in half, it seemed as though my tummy, my face, and my chin had lives of their own, and the goal of their existence is just to expand and expand and expand until I was powerless and too overwhelmed by LDL to stop them. All the loss I could muster? Diminutive. Infinitesimal. Nil. The makings of a quarter-life crisis.

That was six months ago. Shortly after that, an announcement was made that drove me and several of my colleagues to the gym.

Annual Convention would be held in Boracay in November.

Fitness First has a motto that they love to plaster all over their gym walls: Motivation is what gets you started; habit is what keeps you going. Motivation, check. It's going to be my first time in that hallowed land right smack in the middle of this country, and there was no way in hell that a single guy like me would appear bloated in such a place. Boracay equals fit, and that was it. If I were to look good and feel good, things had to change around here. And as Master Yoda would put it: Change, things did.

I weighed myself yesterday.

I think I just returned to college. :)