SUGAR-FREE

A few weeks ago, I became officially overweight. This was without any deliberate effort; the kind of thing you just suspect when you struggle with your usual size in the fitting room. You make an excuse that in these days of international trade, sizes differ from one country to another, this lovely shirt must have been sized from another country as your last. Vain! I. Stepped on the scale that day, worked the maths and reality stared finally in the face.

The interplay of what makes people fat is both complex and simple in my opinion : what one eats or drinks, physical exercise, gene pool and all the other things students of science tell us. Of all, lifestyle choices are summarily blamed the most. For someone like me whose height has not added an inch since age 21 or so years, I am now poised to ask if my choices have come haunt me. As much as I want to get on an on exercise regimen, I am often so fatigued at the end of the working day that I just want to lay down and rest. I don't consider myself a glutton with an unmatched appetite for burgers though. I feed on bits here and there. Also, for my stomach sake (an unpleasant low threshold for 'stomach bugs') I am very choosy of what goes into my mouth. As for one's genes, one might not have decided the sequence that has been inherited, but to a great extent what one becomes/does with/about them is a matter of choice.

In another setting, the increment on my weight would be considered as an evidence o f good living - not in today's trendy world! Cosmetics aside, the health implications from excess body weight are far reaching, potentially reducing the quality of one's life. So as it stands,I am obliged to eat less; in quantity and in frequency. I have leaned towards keeping my kitchen shelves and the carbines of my fridge stocked with the likes of coke light or coke zero, low-salt seafoods, low cholesterol cooking oils or butter, low fat biscuits, brown sugar or artificial sweeteners, low fat yoghurt for some years now. Do these really do the job of weight control? They haven't so far. Do I really have to do the calorie math, stick to a certain dietary regimen and deny myself every lust of the eyes? The rewards are certainly desirable.

These few weeks, I have seen the effect of just eating less on my body. An exercise protocol would be added soon. I have opted to lose weight gradually (too suddenly comes with dire consequences, especially with the female folk). It's a deliberate life of starving now. Perhaps a life of self-control too.