Pssstt…hey sexy! (that's me)

“Wheeet!” they whistled. “Hey sexy!” Two lithe lasses in bikinis were crooning after me. In my slim twenties I got that quite a bit (especially with regard to my buns, or so I was told), then less and less. I’ve lost fifty kilograms now, most of it in six months, and am getting some of that great perv attention again.

The two lovelies were tanning on the lawn of their home, and I had nodded a hello, my eyes on automatic pilot as they briefly trailed over the girls’ assets while I strolled past. A minute or so later I heard someone being complimented loudly on his gorgeousness. Lucky guy. The calls and whistles were insistent and I realised I was the only person on the road. Could they be … ?!?

I turned around to see their two cute faces sticking out from behind their garden wall, grinning — with delicious blatancy — in my direction. As I waved at them, one waved back, then they giggled and disappeared. Well now! For the rest of my stroll to the library I was walking on air. An old hand at the art of perving, I am the first to admit I love being perved in turn. And it has been a long, long time.

No, you did not mis-read that sentence in the first paragraph. I have lost fifty kilograms since my arrival here in New Zealand in March. The profile pic on this blog is nearly twenty kilograms ago, by the way.

How did you do it?

“How did you do it?” is the question I get most often asked. This includes an astonished, podgy medical doctor after I told him how much weight I had lost. The question is sad. We live in a world where weight loss is meant to be a secret when it isn’t. We live in a world where slimming programmes, “passive” exercise regimens and gimmicks, including vibrating trouser belts, teas and pills, is a billion-dollar industry. You’ve probably seen online teasers like “one old, simple trick to quickly remove inches of abdominal fat”. Click on it and you enter a mysterious world where slim, physical beauty and a corrugated iron six pack can be yours for only …

Now there’s the thing. Get people to believe something highly desirable is a secret, that you just have to whip out your credit card for the Keys to that Mystery, and you have a product that will make you a fortune. And too many people believe that weight loss is a secret. Otherwise, why would so many fatties and perambulating beach balls (and slim people) ask me with bated breath, “ … how … did … you … DO it?”

My heart truly goes out to the overweight enquirers as they gape at me in shock and envy through piggy eyes. Inside every fatty there is a skinny hungry to show the world what he or she really is. I know. A skinny who wants to do normal things like cross their legs (I couldn’t), bend over and pick up dropped keys in two ticks flat (I would struggle for what felt like forever to reach them) or casually slip into normal pants at a regular clothes store. Fatties who are tired of having to avoid sitting on rickety chairs (I have suddenly seen the south face of my arse on more than one occasion) or seeing their side-view reflection in a shop window and wincing. The list is very long.

At the end of the day all I did was eat small, nutritious meals, drink lots of water and exercise moderately. No booze, no junk food, no bread, no processed sugar. The “secret formula” is hardly a formidable stroke of genius, is it now?

Oh … in one sense I suppose there is “more” to it than that. A big one is that fatties (and they really don’t like that word) just don’t believe they can ever be slim. I know. Another very big one is denial.

Which is why I am pretty sure I am going to write a very short, down to earth book to add my golden bit to the wealth of products already out there milking the “secrets to weight loss” cow. One publisher has already expressed some tentative interest in the project. It’s sad to think there is a market to reveal there is no secret to weight loss in a market that would have you believe there are only secret and often expensive ways to become the “new, slim, beautiful you you were always meant to be”. But it is also exhilarating.