The Dear Departed Flatness

For those of you who have it enjoy it while it lasts. For the rest - of us - we know it ain't coming back. No sirree, its tossed its head, kicked up its heels and run away into the sunset. I am talking about the body part called the stomach aka the abs aka the six pack area....

I was luckier than my peers because I have always been thin and that stood me in good stead for a longer period. Just to clarify when I mean thin, I don't mean in a lanky, long distance runner with sinewy muscles way. So it was in the last two years that my paunch (shudder shudder) started growing. At first I ignored it and why not? I was going regularly to the gym, I was never a big eater and ..... well I was dead sure that was enough. Even in the gym, I would rarely do abs because I was busy sculpting the rest of my body. 

Then I moved to Delhi and my regularity to the gym instead became an erratic schedule. What my namesake St Matthew said - 'Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak' totally applied to me. Well, the partial truth is that my old gym sucked big  time but let bygones be bygones....

Unlike King Henry, I couldn't just say 'Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest... errr... paunch?' but two events strengthened my resolve to rid me . One (minor) was that my gym membership expired and I had the opportunity to join a much better gym with less testosterone laden Punjabis, which was also walking distance from my house. The other (MAJOR) was that my wife started grabbing my paunch and calling it by all kinds of names. ENOUGH my body screamed. I strode out to hit the gym (in March)...... but the rest is not history my friends. If I may, I would like to compare this story to the movie 300 - Unlike the soldiers there my stomach still remains rotund and that is the similarity with the movie, an unhappy ending. Wait, is there a possibility of a sequel? Over the last week, my wife has grudgingly admitted that the lovable / evil paunch (depends on which way you look at it)  has gone down. Watch this space for more.... and if you are a true fan, write to me for contributions to my gym fund.