The manner in which a midriff (among others) can trim itself without one’s overly bending over backwards

PART TWO

Straying off course for the sake of a story that simply cries out to be told

MY closing remark on quakes and their telling impact on attic dwellers that I ended part one of this piece with last week reminds me of a yarn I’d heard of late — and I do beg your forgiveness for this passing aside that the raconteur in me just can’t resist.

The case in point took place during one of those recent tremors felt in these parts.  The very first thing this man of the house, the protagonist of my apocryphal tale, rushed to safeguard during the shudder was his precious flat screen TV that lay flush against the wall.

And while he held on to this prized possession for dear life, as the building shook and the room swayed, he caught a stark glimpse of the scared stiff looks on his children’s faces as they cowered under the table, and at once felt awful, mortified by his pecking order of priorities.

It was then too that he spared a thought for the whereabouts of his better half.  It so happened that said wife was in the kitchen (where else would she be, right?) to turn off the gas, in a selfless deed that showed admirable presence of mind.

Hit the stomach where it hurts if you want to win this latter day Battle of the Bulge 

TO get back on track: as counselled earlier, do not take this particular tip to heart and thence to hearth and home.  In view of the fact that, even for me, the lab rat, so to speak, it wasn’t planned but happened quite by chance.  Still I can’t help feel that the recurring nightmare I’d lived through, on a day to day basis, for two years on the trot — another apposite pun, that, as soon will be made clear — had a whole lot more to do with my new slim Jim looks than I cared to admit.

You see, every year, for as long as I can remember, I’ve taken this annual winter sabbatical down in my old hometown, Kolkata (or Cal, as I like to say) to soak up some good old nostalgia (plus a stiff shot of foul air).  On a recent successive couple of sojourns, though, I’d caught something even more intimate … a stomach bug that gave me the kind of Montezuma’s revenge you wouldn’t believe.  Without going into lurid diarrhoeal detail, let me sum up the whole sordid affair in two simple words of one syllable apiece: loose and long.

Yet, if you can credit it, there actually was a silver lining behind all those frequent clouded trips to the loo!  My one-way drift-to-thin took right off then and I’ve never looked back since.  Really.  It wasn’t enough in itself, of course, which is just as well, else I’d be all skin and bones by now, but it was one helluva start.

One positive spin-off of a close encounter of the turd kind (pardon my crude and puerile word play)

MY off-and-on two-year ‘run’ ground to a merciful halt and my bowel movements, if you’ll excuse their mention and can stomach the potty talk, back in business, began to churn them out, by and large, like plantains, or bananas on the odd bad day.

And that’s something, I’ll have you know, in case you misconstrue my remarks as a coarse attempt at toilet humour, a personage no less than Oprah Winfrey, the Queen of Talk Shows herself, prescribed as the size and shape of the ‘big job’, the gold standard, one might say, of the digestive system’s end-product.

But, like I said and, to stress the point, keep saying, you’d be well advised not to follow in my enforced footsteps; the ailment, being at least as bad as bulimia, which could be its alter ego or doppelganger, as the case may be, has much the same dire consequences in terms of dramatic weight loss.

No, take it from me, the horse’s mouth: there are better ways by far to lose weight than either through loose motion or a loss of appetite.  Third degree methods are counter-productive and best given a wide berth.

The one good thing, though, I took away from the entire bum trip was this chance nudge in the right direction that led to my head start with respect to accidental weight control.

A spontaneous three-stage pound-shedding regimen – with motivation as a launch pad

AS a necessary first step towards any volte-face in lifestyle, one must have sufficient cause, as they say in law.  Be it for the sake of health, ego or aesthetics, there has to be a driving force to propel one along the path to weight reduction or whatever.  And that drive, as I’ve said before, I had in spades.

Now here’s the back-story to my almost phobic abhorrence of bulk.  There was a time, in my old youth, when I harboured offbeat ambitions (now, my goals are so off-the-wall, it would be wiser not to show-and-tell!).  While my boyhood peers sought to be (and many did achieve their dreams in the end; more power to them) doctors, engineers, architects, et al, me, I wanted to be a rock star.

Hell, yeah!

I had all the wherewithal to fulfil my mad desire: the voice (albeit better suited for soft rock), guitar, band, hair, badass attitude and, note well this last, a flat tum.

Next Week: A three-pronged weapon that will need to be wielded against the nemesis of weight

Contributed by 

John M Chiramal

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